Wheel In the Sky
by Annabeth-Stark-of-Winterfell
Summary: Sequel to "Hell's Bells", with Lucifer risen from the cage and both angels and demons involved in the apocalypse, Elena is put in a difficult situation when they discover that Dean and Sam play an important part in the final battle as she grows closer to both brothers and their rebellious angel, Castiel. Rated M for language, sexual content, and violence.
1. I Don't Know Where I'll Be Tomorrow

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Summary: Sequel to "Hell's Bells", with Lucifer risen from the cage and both angels and demons involved in the apocalypse, Elena is put in a difficult situation when they discover that Dean and Sam play an important part in the final battle as she grows ever closer to both brothers and their rebellious angel, Castiel. Rated M for language, sexual content, and violence**

**Thank you to everyone who is already reading! I love you all and I hope you like it!**

**WORK & CHAPTER TITLE: Wheel In the Sky – Journey**

**As always, Elena's outfits are on my profile as well as this part's playlist.**

* * *

Dean and Sam's eyes popped open when they realized that they were no longer in the convent with the bright light surrounding them. They stared around with wide eyes, realizing that they were on a plane. The people around them seemed oblivious to the fact that they hadn't been there the entire time.

"What the hell?" Dean muttered.

"I don't know." Sam said.

"Where's Elena?" the older brother said, looking around wildly.

She wasn't anywhere to be found. Sam stared at the seat in front of him, the worst going through his mind. What if Lucifer got Elena? What if he killed her? It would be his fault. Dean would never forgive him. He would never forgive himself.

"Folks, quick word from the flight deck. We're just passing over Ilchester, then Ellicott City, on our initial descent into Baltimore…" the pilot said, coming over the intercom.

"Ilchester? Weren't we just there?" Dean said, confused as he looked over at Sam.

"So if you'd like to stretch your legs, now would be a good time to…"

A bright flash of light filled the air and Sam and Dean knew that it was far too familiar.

"Holy crap!" the pilot shouted as a shock wave knocked the plane off kilter.

People began to be thrown around the plane, screaming, as oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. They reached and put them on before Dean looked out the window, terrified as they dropped through the air.

* * *

Elena squinted at the man who stood there grinning at her.

"You're Gabriel?" she asked skeptically.

"Hey, don't judge the book by it's cover, sweetheart. This vessel has done good for me for a very, very long time." he said, gesturing to his body.

"How good?" she countered.

"Oh that is a story… a lot of stories… for another time." he said with a wink.

"Where are Sam and Dean?" Elena demanded, already sensing that he was a flirt which was strange for an angel.

"Oh don't worry about them. Daddy's got that under control." He waved off.

"Daddy? God?" she questioned, unfolding her arms and twisting her hands together as she started to believe him.

"Who else would I be talking about?" he asked, still smiling like an idiot.

He sat down on a couch and invited her to sit across from him. She remained standing stubbornly.

"Hmm… well Castiel did warn me." he shrugged.

"Cas." She said with wide eyes.

Gabriel looked up at her, the smile suddenly gone.

"Is he…?" she cut herself off, unsure of what she wanted to say.

"He got himself tangled with an archangel, sweetheart. I'll be shocked if he's not blown to a million pieces." Gabriel said.

Elena let out a sharp breath and sat on the couch, her hand going up to her mouth.

"He was… helping us." She said, feeling so regretful.

"Yeah, I've noticed that helping you doesn't exactly do good things for Cassie. I wonder why he keeps doing it." the archangel shrugged, leaning back to put his arm on the back of his couch.

Elena looked up at him with a furrowed brow.

"Because he's a good person." She said.

"He's not a person, honey. He's an angel. Who has managed to get himself way too attached to three humans." he said, rolling his eyes.

"Says the man whose been living on earth for thousands of years." Elena shot back, surprising the archangel.

"Hmm… that's not in Daddy's book. Where did you hear that?" Gabriel asked, leaning forward with interest on his face.

"Cas told me things." she said softly, looking down at her hands.

"You really are sad, aren't you?" Gabriel asked.

Elena looked up at him.

"Of course I am. Cas is… was… I…" she stammered, unsure of how to say it.

"You cared about him. Huh. Aren't humans just… interesting. You knew the guy for a few months and bam!" Gabriel clapped, making her jump slightly. "You fall for his big blue eyes."

"I didn't fall for anything. Cas is a good person… angel… whatever. I appreciate the goodness in people." She snapped.

"Well you're gonna love me, sweetheart. I got a lot of goodness in me." he said, putting his hands over his heart as he winked.

"Really? Cause I have my doubts about that." she shot back.

Gabriel let out a barking laugh as he stood up.

"Oh you and I are gonna have a great time, darling." He said, holding his hand out to her.

Elena stared up at him suspiciously.

"Calm down. I'm just trying to help you out. I assume you want to get back to your boys. And out of those filthy clothes." He said, making her look down to see dust and dirt covering her clothing.

"How did that get all over me?" she wondered.

"Lucifer rose, cupcake. It was a messy affair and all that." he said simply.

She looked up and slid her hand into his.

"You seem pretty calm for an archangel when the devil literally just climbed out of his cage." She commented as he helped her up.

Gabriel shrugged.

"Can't let these kind of things get to you." he said.

Elena looked him deep in the eyes, swallowing hard.

"Is there any way… can you bring Cas back?" she asked, not knowing why she instinctively trusted this man.

"Sorry sugar. Not even all the king's horses and all the king's men can put Castiel back together again." He sighed, shaking his head.

Elena noticed that he looked truly regretful and that was enough to make her like this man… a little bit.

"What about the king?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gabriel smirked at her.

"Now you're catching on." he said vaguely, throwing her off as she had no idea what that meant.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, knowing she wasn't going to get any more information on Cas.

"To introduce myself. We're going to be getting a lot more acquainted but, from what I've heard, I shouldn't keep you away from your boys for too long. They might just rip the country apart looking for you." he said with an amused sparkle in his eye.

She laughed softly and shook her head.

"Unfortunately, I don't think that's far off." she said, looking up at him.

He laughed as well, shrugging.

"You aren't like any angel I've met." She informed him.

"I know, those uptight bastards need to pull the sticks out of their asses, don't you think?" he asked, making her giggle lightly.

"Yeah." She nodded, agreeing with him.

"Time to get you to those Winchesters, sweetheart. But first, you can trust me because I have been around since the day you were born. You just haven't seen me." he informed her, picking up her hand and pressing a kiss to her hand.

"Oh yeah? You weren't very good at playing guardian angel." She shot back.

"You're here, aren't you?" he asked, gesturing around.

"Speaking of here…" she trailed off, looking around.

"You really want to know?" he asked, looking mischievous.

She nodded, wary of his answer.

"Morgan Freeman's house." He nodded, looking around.

"Seriously?" Elena said, unsure of whether he was joking or not.

"Yeah, seriously. I always loved the guy. His voice… it's great." He nodded, throwing her a silly grin.

"Huh. I'm in Morgan Freeman's house." She said, looking around.

"Not for long. Do me a favor and tell Dean Winchester to suck it. I'm sure he'll take you up on it." he said with a wink.

"Do you have something against…?" she was cut off by the familiar feeling of transportation.

* * *

She whirled around to discover that she was standing in an airport. Not only that, she was in totally different clothing. Clothing that was very much her style.

"Damn. That angel is good." She murmured, looking down at them with wide eyes.

Suddenly she looked around to see a SWAT team spilling into the airport, guns in hand and everything.

"What did they do?" she wondered, her eyes widening further.

When she saw a crowd of panicked people spilling out of security, most of them vowing never to fly again, she knew that either Dean and Sam flew a plane or something else bad happened. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw them walking out with the crowd, looking just as panicked as the rest of the people. Dean caught sight of her and relief covered his face as he ran at her. She did the same, not caring about the high heels that Gabriel had put her in. When they reached each other, he gathered her in his arms and she buried her face in his neck as he lifted her off the ground.

"When you weren't there… I thought the worst." He murmured, squeezing her tightly.

"I know. I'm sorry." She whispered, thankful that both he and Sam looked all right.

She drew away and looked him in the eyes as he set her on the ground.

"What happened?" she asked, gesturing to the chaos around them.

"We ended up on a plane right over Ilchester somehow and right when we did, I think the convent exploded. Light shot straight up into the sky." he explained.

"Lucifer." She sighed.

Her eyes flickered past him to Sam, who was looking as guilty as he possibly could.

"Have you…" she began.

"We haven't talked… at all." He said, sensing her question before it came.

She nodded and pulled away from him.

"So, I met the archangel Gabriel. He's a… character." She said, shaking her head as she recalled her conversation with the angel.

"Did he say anything about Cas?" Dean questioned immediately.

Her face fell.

"He thinks he's dead." She mumbled, looking down at her shoes.

"Well does he know for sure?" Sam spoke up, looking at them.

They stared at him for a moment before Elena shrugged.

"I mean he didn't see it himself…" she said.

"Then I won't believe until I see it." Dean said, taking her hand as they turned to walk out of the airport.

Elena looked back to make sure that Sam was following. When their eyes met, he looked at her with a stressed expression. She tried to smile at him but all she could manage was a slight grimace before she looked away.

* * *

Elena sat in the passenger seat of the rental car flipping through the stations of the radio as Dean drove and Sam sat in the backseat silently

"… and Governor O'Malley urged calm…. saying it's very unlikely an abandoned convent would be a target for terrorists, either foreign or homegrown."

Next station.

"… Hurricane Kinley, unexpectedly slamming into the Galveston area…"

Next station.

"… announced a successful test of the North Korean nuclear…"

Next station.

"… a series of tremors…"

Next station

"… swine flu…"

Elena finally shut off the radio and sighed, leaning back.

"Guys, look…" Sam finally said.

"Don't say anything." Dean cut him off.

Elena remained as she stared down at her hands and there was silence in the car.

"It's okay." Dean sighed. "We just got to keep our heads down and hash this out, all right?"

A long pause filled the air again as they waited for Sam's reply.

"Yeah, okay." He said softly.

"All right, well, first things first… how did we end up on Soul Plane?" Dean asked.

Elena opened her mouth to tell them but Sam beat her to it.

"Angels, maybe? I mean, you know, beaming us out of harm's way?" he questioned.

"No, it was God." Elena said.

"God?" Dean asked.

"Like, 'our Father who art in heaven', God?" Sam said.

"That's what Gabriel said." she shrugged.

"Yeah, the angel. Great. Have you forgotten how many times angels have screwed us over?" Dean scoffed.

Elena whipped her head around to stare at him.

"No, I haven't. But this is different. You know that Gabriel is my own person angel guardian. He's been around since I was born protecting me. Though he seems to have something against you. So what'd you do to piss of an archangel?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Let's look at the long list of things I've done in my life that could possibly piss off an archangel. Maybe convincing one of his brothers to rebel is number one." Dean said.

"Nope, that's not it." Elena said, shaking her head.

"Then I got nothing." He shrugged.

"Well, I hope you figure it out. Because according to Gabriel, he's gonna be around for a while." she said, turning to face the front.

"Did your archangel give you your new clothes?" Dean asked, looking at her outfit.

"Yeah I just kinda appeared with them when he transported me to the airport to find you guys." She shrugged, looking down.

"Well, whatever. We need to find Cas." He said, shaking his head.

* * *

When they arrived at Chuck's house, they immediately saw that all of the windows were blown out and the door was shattered into pieces.

"Where's the demon-killing knife?" Dean asked, turning to Elena.

Her eyes widened when she realized that she'd had it in her hands with Gabriel and now it was no longer on her. She looked at him with terrified eyes as he looked at her with an exasperated expression.

"Where did you have it last?" he sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"With Gabriel." She said softly.

He shook his head.

"Like I said, angels screw us over." He growled.

"Uh, Dean." Sam said.

"What?" He snapped.

Sam's hand appeared between the two of them holding the knife in question.

"How did you…?" Elena said, turning to him.

"I didn't. It just appeared in the seat beside me." Sam said as Dean took it out of his hand.

Elena looked up at the older brother triumphantly.

"Like I said, this is different." She said, smirking at him.

He rolled his eyes and got out of the car. As they walked into the house, Elena winced when Dean sliced his hand open.

* * *

As they walked through the devastated house, they heard a noise behind them in the living room. Sam walked in first, walking hesitantly as Dean and Elena followed him. Suddenly, a toilet plunger came out of nowhere and smacked Sam over the head. He stumbled backwards, pressing his hand to his head.

"Geez! Ow!" he complained, looking up at his attacker with wide eyes.

"Sam." Chuck said, looking shocked to see them.

"Yeah!" Sam said, startled and looking a little out of it.

"Hey, Chuck." Dean said, lifting his hand to wave at the prophet.

Elena waved as well, smiling slightly.

"So... you're okay?" Chuck asked.

"Well, my head hurts." Sam replied.

"No, I mean… I mean, my last vision. You went, like, full-on Vader. Your body temperature was one-fifty. Your heart rate was two hundred. Your eyes were black." He explained, making both Elena and Dean stare at the back of Sam's head.

"Your eyes went black?" Dean asked.

Sam looked at them over his shoulder, his eyes remorseful once more.

"I didn't know." He said softly.

"Where's Cas?" Dean asked, looking past his brother at Chuck.

"He's dead. Or gone. The archangel smote the crap out of him. I'm sorry."

Elena felt the sinking feeling all over again and cursed herself for feeling hope that their angel survived.

"You're sure? I mean, maybe he just vanished into the light or something." Dean said, trying to keep that last shred of false hope.

"Oh, no. He, like, exploded. Like a water balloon of chunky soup." Chuck described, cutting off with an apologetic expression.

Elena turned away from him to face the other direction and Dean ran his hand through his hair as he looked at the ground. Sam squinted, looking closer at the prophet before gesturing to his own left ear.

"You got a…" he trailed off.

Chuck waved a hand at his right ear.

"Uh... right here?" he asked.

Sam shook his head, indicating the other side.

"Uh, the..." he cut off as Chuck felt his hair and pulled something out.

"Is that a molar? Do I have a molar in my hair?" he exclaimed, looking up at them with panicked eyes as they stared at him. "This has been a really stressful day."

"Cas, you stupid bastard." Dean sighed, ignoring the prophet as he glared at the ground.

"He was trying to help us." Elena reminded him, still facing away.

"Yeah, exactly." Dean nodded.

"So, what now?" Sam asked, turning to face them.

"I don't know." Dean admitted as Elena looked back at him.

"Oh, crap." Chuck said, looking up at the ceiling.

"What?" Elena questioned, looking over at him.

"I can feel them." He said.

"Thought we'd find you here." A new voice said, causing them to whirl around to see Zachariah standing there with two unknown angels accompanying him. "Playtime's over, Dean. Time to come with us."

"You just keep your distance, asshat." Dean snapped, pulling Elena towards him as she was standing to close to the angels for his comfort.

"You're upset." Zachariah acknowledged.

"Yeah. A little. You sons of bitches jump-started judgment day!" he growled.

"Maybe we let it happen. We didn't start anything. Right, Sammy?" Zachariah said, winking at the younger brother who looked devastated once more.

Elena glared at him, stepping in front of Sam automatically.

"You had a chance to stop your brother, and you couldn't. So let's not quibble over who started what. Let's just say it was all our faults and move on. Cause like it or not… it's Apocalypse Now. And we're back on the same team again." Zachariah shrugged.

"Is that so?" Dean snapped.

"You want to kill the devil. We want you to kill the devil. It's... synergy." the angel shrugged.

"And I'm just supposed to trust you?" Dean scoffed. "Cram it with walnuts, ugly."

Elena bit her lip to keep from smiling at his rejection of the angel, who looked pissed.

"This isn't a game, son. Lucifer is powerful in ways that defy description. We need to strike now, hard and fast… before he finds his vessel." Zachariah said, glaring around at them.

"His vessel? Lucifer needs a meat suit?" Sam asked.

"He is an angel. Them's the rules." Zachariah chuckled, looking back at the other two angels before looking at them once more. "And when he touches down, we're talking Four Horsemen, red oceans, fiery skies… the greatest hits. You can stop him, Dean, but you need our help."

"You listen to me, you two-faced douche. After what you did, I don't want jack squat from you!" Dean said, his voice slightly raised.

"You listen to me, boy! You think you can rebel against us? As Lucifer did?" Zachariah yelled, starting forward but stopping when he noticed something. "You're bleeding."

"Oh, yeah… a little insurance policy in case you dicks showed up." Dean said, pulling the door to the kitchen out to reveal the angel-banishing sigil he'd drawn when they first walked into the house.

"No!" Zachariah shouted just before he slapped his hand to it.

They all covered their eyes as the angels disappeared in a flash of white light.

"Learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch!" Dean shouted, making Elena's heart drop once more.

"This sucks ass." Chuck informed them after a few moments of silence.

* * *

Elena and Dean looked up as Sam entered the motel room that they'd rented for the night. He tossed something at them as soon as he shut the door.

"Here. Hex bags. No way the angels will find us with those. Demons, either, for that matter." He explained.

"Where'd you get it?" Dean asked, examining the bag.

"I made it." Sam said.

"How?" he questioned.

Sam hesitated long enough for them both to look up at him.

"I... I learned it from Ruby." Sam said, looking anywhere but at them.

Elena watched as Dean put down the bag and walked to Sam.

"Speaking of. How you doing? Are you jonesing for another hit of bitch blood or what?" he asked bluntly.

"I… it's weird. Uh, tell you the truth, I'm fine. No shakes, no fever. It's like whoever... put me on that plane cleaned me right up." Sam explained.

"Supernatural methadone." Dean shrugged, looking back at Elena as he walked to his chair once again.

"Yeah, I guess." Sam nodded, watching them with cautious expression.

"Dean…" he began.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything." Dean interrupted him from talking about it once more.

"Well, that's good. Because what can I even say? I'm sorry? I screwed up? Doesn't really do it justice, you know? Look, there's nothing I can do or say that will ever make this right…" Sam said.

"So why do you keep bringing it up?" Dean shouted suddenly, making Elena jump and Sam to look at him with shock.

Sam sighed and looked down at his hands.

"Look, all I'm saying is, why do we have to put this under a microscope? We made a mess. We clean it up. That's it." Dean said, looking up at him.

Sam nodded slowly.

"All right, so, say this is just any other hunt. You know? What do we do first?" Dean said.

"We'd, uh, figure out where the thing is." Sam said.

"All right. So we just got to find... the devil." The older brother sighed, shaking his head.

* * *

In Pike Creek, Delaware, a man named Nick was walking up to his house. As he opened his front gate and let it swing shut, a wind picked up and swung the gate forward and backwards violently, causing him to turn and look at it. The gate banged open and shut once more before calming down.

Later on, lying in bed alone and restless, he pulled his hands out from under the blankets to reveal blood soaking them. He threw the sheets away and found that there was blood all over him and the blankets. He jumped out of bed and looked back at the bed to find it perfectly clean.

"All right, keep it together. Keep it together, man." he murmured to himself as he turned the light off and slid into the bed once more.

He turned over and came face to face with a woman with a blood stain on her cheek. He sat up, staring down at her in shock.

"It's you, Nick. You're special. You're chosen." She breathed reverently.

Nick shook his head, not able to believe what he was seeing as he covered his eyes with his hand. When he moved it away, she was gone and he was alone.

* * *

"And then Sam touched… no… caressed Dean's clavicle. 'This is wrong,' said Dean. 'Then I don't want to be right,' replied Sam, in a husky voice." A young woman said as she typed on her computer.

Suddenly a message appeared on her screen. **Carver Edlund Calling**.

Confused, the young woman clicked accept and gasped when the author of the Supernatural series was revealed on her computer screen.

"Oh...my...god. You. You're..." she squealed as he looked over his shoulder.

"Carver Edlund, yeah. Hi, Becky." He said, picking up his hand and waving slightly before putting it down.

"You got my letters. And my marzipan." She said excitedly.

"Yeah, yeah. Um... yummy. But, uh…"

"I am your number-one fan. You know, I'm samlicker81." Becky interrupted him.

"I'm sorry. You're… you're what?" he questioned, wanting to make sure that he heard her right.

"Webmistress at morethanbrothers dot net?" she questioned.

"Oh. Yeah. No, yeah. You're my... number-one fan." He said as if it pained him as she grinned.

"That's why I contacted you. You're the only one who will believe me." he said as he looked up to the ceiling.

"Are you all right?" she asked, frowning.

"No. I'm being watched. Okay, not, not now… at least, I don't think so. But I don't have much time. I need your help." He said, making her become overexcited again.

"You need my help?" she screeched, making him wince.

"That's right. I need you to get a message to Sam and Dean. Okay?" he asked.

She sighed, looking down at her hands.

"Look, Mr. Edlund... Yes, I'm a fan, but I really don't appreciate being mocked. I know that Supernatural's just a book, okay? I know the difference between fantasy and reality." She said, sounding put-out.

"Becky, it's all real!" he interrupted her.

"I knew it!" She squealed.

* * *

Elena sighed as a loud voice woke her out of her sleep. She sat up slowly, looking around.

"How long have I slept?" she asked, seeing Dean sitting next to her and Sam at the table.

"About three hours." Dean answered.

"And you two?" she asked.

They both shrugged.

"An hour." They answered together.

She opened her mouth to berate them but the television interrupted her.

"How would you then explain an earthquake, a hurricane, and multiple tornadoes, all at the same time, all around the globe?" the newscaster asked, facing a man who looked full of himself.

"Two words. Carbon emissions." He answered proudly.

"Yeah, right, wavy gravy." Dean scoffed to the man.

A knock sounded on the door and Dean immediately pulled his gun as Sam walked to answer it. When he opened it, a young woman about Elena's age was revealed looking very excited. She took a deep breath, having trouble with it.

"You okay, lady?" Sam asked, unsure of what to do.

"Sam... is it really you?" she said in a high-pitched voice.

Sam glanced back at them and Elena watched as the girl stepped closer and put a hand on his chest.

"And you're so firm." She sighed happily.

"Uh, do I know you?" Sam asked, sounding thoroughly creeped out.

"No. But I know you. You're Sam Winchester. And you're…" she glanced over at Elena, looking confused at her presence, before looking at Dean.

"… not what I pictured. I'm Becky." She said, pushing past Sam and into the room as Dean stood up.

"I read all about you guys. And I've even written a few…" she glanced down, giggling nervously.

"Anyway, Mr. Edlund told me where you were." She said.

"Chuck?" Dean asked as Sam closed the door.

"He's got a message, but he's being watched. Angels. Nice change-up to the mythology, by the way. The demon stuff was getting kind of old." Becky whispered as if it was some big secret.

"Right. Just, um... what's the message?" Sam asked, walking to stand in front of her as Elena stood and stretched out.

"He had a vision. 'The Michael sword is on earth. The angels lost it'." she recited.

"The Michael sword?" Dean asked, sounding confused.

"Becky, does he know where it is?" Sam asked, sounding hopeful.

"In a castle, on a hill made of forty-two dogs." Becky nodded.

"Forty-two dogs?" Dean asked.

"Are... you sure you got that right?" Elena questioned, wondering about this girl's sanity.

"It doesn't make sense, but that's what he said." she said.

Becky stepped closer to Sam.

"I memorized every word." She whispered, reaching out to touch his chest. "For you."

Sam glanced over at Elena and Dean for help, both of whom shrugged and shook their heads as if to say, 'you are on your own'.

"Um, Becky, c… uh, can you... quit touching me?" he asked, bewildered by this strange girl's behavior.

"No." she said, shaking her head.

* * *

A few hours later, another knock sounded and Elena looked up from where she was finishing up curling her hair at the desk to watch Dean open the door. Seeing as they didn't have any clothes with them, she'd gone out shopping and found an outfit to change into before showering.

"Hey, Bobby." Dean sighed as Bobby hugged him immediately, clapping him on the back.

"Good to see you boys all in one piece." He said, hugging Sam who was smiling.

Then he turned to Elena and walked over to her as she stood, hugging her as well.

"Thanks for bringing 'em back." he murmured.

"I didn't do much, but you're welcome." She whispered back before he pulled away.

"You weren't followed, were you?" Dean asked as he turned back to them.

"You mean by angels, demons, or Sam's new superfan?" Bobby asked, gesturing to the younger Winchester as he walked to sit at the table and they all followed him.

Sam laughed as Elena leaned over Dean's shoulder and Bobby pulled out a book.

"You heard." Sam said, nodding.

"I heard, Romeo. So... sword of Michael, huh?" he said, looking up at them.

"You think we're talking about the actual sword from the actual archangel?" Dean asked skeptically.

"You better hope so." Bobby sighed, opening the book to reveal a painting of Michael surrounded by other angels.

"That's Michael. Toughest son of a bitch they got." He said, pointing to him.

"You kidding me? Tough? That guy looks like Cate Blanchett." Dean scoffed.

"Well, I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, believe me. He commands the heavenly host. During the last big dust-up upstairs, he's the one who booted Lucifer's ass to the basement. Did it with that sword." Bobby explained, pointing at the sword he was holding in the painting.

"So if we can find it..." he trailed off.

"We can kick the devil's ass all over again. All right. So, where do we start?" Sam asked.

"Divvy up and start reading… try and make sense of Chuck's nonsense." Bobby said, picking up his bag and revealing a pile of books he brought.

Sam began to reach for them but hesitated, staring at them before looking up at Bobby.

"Kid? You all right?" Bobby asked.

"No, actually. Bobby, this is all my fault. I'm sorry." He said.

"Sam..." Dean began, shaking his head.

"Lilith did not break the final seal. Lilith was the final seal." He said before his brother could stop him.

"Sam, stop it." Dean snapped, not wanting to talk about it.

"I killed her, and I set Lucifer free." Sam continued.

"You what?" Bobby said, standing up slowly.

Elena straightened out as Dean did the same.

"You guys warned me about Ruby, the demon blood, but I didn't listen. I brought this on." Sam said regretfully.

Neither Dean nor Elena said anything as Bobby stood and moved closer.

"You're damn right you didn't listen. You were reckless and selfish and arrogant." Bobby growled, sounding pissed.

"I'm sorry." Sam said desperately.

"Oh, yeah? You're sorry you started Armageddon? This kind of thing don't get forgiven, boy. If, by some miracle, we pull this off... I want you to lose my number. You understand me?" Bobby said harshly, making tears fill Sam's eyes.

But he nodded understandingly as if he'd been expecting this outcome. Elena looked up at Dean to see him sporting a carefully guarded expression. It wasn't that she expected him to stand up for Sam, but he could at least tell Bobby to back off a little bit. Sam was still his little brother whether he liked it or not.

"There's an old church nearby. Maybe I'll go read some of the lore books there." Sam said, backing away slightly.

"Yeah. You do that." Bobby agreed.

Sam turned to walk out and Bobby looked up at Dean and Elena, who was still staring up at the older brother.

"I'm gonna go with him." she said, pushing away from Dean as she walked to the bed and picked up her coat.

"Elena…" Dean began.

"I'm going, Dean." She snapped, turning to give him a pointed stare before she walked out of the room as well.

* * *

Elena caught up to Sam quickly, falling into step beside him.

"Elena, what are you doing?" he sighed, looking down at her once he noticed her.

"Coming with you." she said simply.

"Look I know you're all disappointed in me and stuff but I don't need a babysitter. I'm not gonna go on a demon blood binge." Sam said roughly.

"That's not why I'm coming with you. You don't need to be alone right now. Not because you can't be trusted, but because you really don't need to be alone right now. You need someone with you who won't judge you. Who won't make you defend yourself, remember?" Elena asked.

Sam stopped and looked at her.

"You really don't want anything? No explanation? No defense? You don't want to scream and yell and hit me?" he asked.

She looked up at him, shoving her hands in the pocket of her trenchcoat.

"I would love nothing more than to scream and yell and hit you. We tried to warn you and stop you so many times and you didn't listen. I'm pretty pissed off because I have no idea what's going to happen now." She said honestly. "But that won't help anything. It won't shove Lucifer back in the cage and it won't stop the apocalypse. Working together gives us a better chance of doing that. Even then we're pretty far behind. Besides, you're all right. And when it comes down to it, that's what matters."

"And if I'm not all right?" he asked.

She sighed and shook her head.

"Then we'll get you there, okay? I'm not abandoning you, Sam. No matter how much you might want me to. Bobby will come around so stop beating yourself up about that. Let's go figure out where this Michael sword is." She said, turning to walk to towards the church again.

"All right." he agreed, nodding as he fell into step with her once more.

* * *

"I never would have guessed that your daddy was right." Bobby said as he and Dean sat at the table in the motel room researching.

"About what?" Dean asked.

"About your brother."

Dean looked up at him with a confused expression

"What John said… you save Sam or kill him. Maybe..." he trailed off.

"Maybe what?" Dean questioned.

"Maybe we shouldn't have tried so hard to save him." Bobby shrugged.

"Bobby…" Dean said, shaking his head.

"He ended the world, Dean. And you and I weren't strong enough to stop him proper. That's on us. I'm just saying, your dad was right." he said, trying to make the older Winchester see it his way.

Realization suddenly dawned in Dean's eyes.

"Dad." He murmured, jumping up to rummage through his bag.

He finally pulled out a ziplock bag full of cards and began rifling through it.

"It's got to be in here somewhere." He grumbled.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bobby demanded.

"Here." Dean said, pulling one out to read it.

Bobby stood up and Dean walked over.

"I don't believe it."

"What the hell is it?" Bobby asked.

"It's a card for my dad's lockup in upstate New York. Read it." Dean said, handing it over to the older hunter.

"Castle Storage. 42 Rover Hill." He recited.

"Castle on a hill of forty-two dogs." Dean said, taking the card back.

"So you think your dad had the Michael sword all this time?" Bobby questioned.

"I don't know. I'm not sure what else Chuck could have meant." Dean shrugged, turning away to put the card back in the bag.

"Yeah. Okay. It's good enough for me." Bobby said.

He jumped at Dean and slammed him through the barrier between the kitchen and the beds. When he turned him over and yanked him up, he slammed him back down on the floor as his eyes went black.

* * *

Elena stopped short before they crossed the street to the church.

"Something is wrong." She said, looking over at Sam with panicked eyes.

"What?" he asked.

She didn't answer, instead bending down to slip off her heels before running back in the direction of the motel with Sam hot on her heels.

* * *

Demon Bobby grabbed Dean by his throat and dragged him to his feet as he sagged weakly. The door slammed open and two demons, a male and a female, entered.

"I always knew you were a big, dumb, slow, dim pain in the ass, Dean. But I never dreamed you were so V.I.P." the female demon said said with a wry grin, spotting Ruby's knife on the table and picking it up. "I mean, you're gonna ice the devil? You? If I'd have known that, I'd have ripped your pretty, pretty face off ages ago."

"Ruby." Dean gasped out.

"Try again. Go back further." She said, smirking at him.

"Meg?" he asked.

"Hi. These are the days of miracle and wonder, Dean. Our father's among us. You know we're all dreaming again for the first time since we were human? It's heaven on earth. Or hell. We really owe your brother a fruit basket." Meg said, reaching out to pat his cheek.

"My God, you like the sound of your own voice." He snapped, glaring at her as Demon Bobby continued to hold him up.

"But you, on the other hand, you're the only bump in the road. So every demon… every single one… is just dying for a piece of you." she informed him.

"Get in line." Dean said, smirking back.

"Oh, I'm in the front of the line, baby. Let's ride." Meg said, leaning in to kiss him as he grunted and struggled, trying to pull away.

"What is that, peanut butter?" he asked, grimacing after she pulled away.

"You know, your surrogate daddy's still awake screaming in there. And I want him to know how it feels slicing the life out of you." she said, handing the knife to Demon Bobby who raised it to Dean's throat as he struggled in his grip.

"Bobby!" he shouted, trying to get through to the human.

The demon looked back at Meg for instructions.

"Now!" Meg commanded.

Demon Bobby raised the knife to stab it into Dean.

"Bobby! No!" Dean yelled.

Elena bolted down the hallway as fast as she could, turning to run to the door. She concentrated without knowing it and the door flew open just as she reached it. She ran inside just in time to see Bobby holding Dean by the throat with two other people surrounding him. He was holding a knife high in the air.

"No!" she screamed as it came down.

Dean didn't collapse to the floor, though. Bobby did. Dean suddenly launched forward and knocked into the male demon, who reacted immediately and slammed him into the wall. Elena immediately ran to the demon and ripped him off of Dean and whirled him around as Sam turned Bobby over and saw the knife sticking out of his stomach.

"Sam, the knife!" Elena shouted.

He winced as he ripped it out of Bobby's gut but turned to stab it into the demon's chest without hesitation. Elena immediately dropped the demon and turned to the female with narrowed eyes.

"Who the hell are you?" the demon demanded.

"I'm Elena. Dean and Sam's guardian. Nice to meet you." She said, launching forward.

"Elena!" Sam shouted.

She turned in time to see him toss the knife at her. She caught it easily and turned on the demon. She took one look at the knife and threw her head back, black smoke streaming out of her mouth. Elena sighed and lowered the knife as the woman collapsed to the floor unconscious. She turned and knelt at Bobby's side, putting her hands to his abdomen where the knife wound was.

"Elena…" Dean said.

"Dammit!" she cried, interrupting him as she felt no power coming.

"Elena we can't wait. We have to get him to the hospital." Sam urged her.

She pushed herself away as tears filled her eyes. Dean and Sam lifted Bobby up as she held the doors open for them and they rushed down to the Impala.

* * *

**Pike Creek, Delaware**

Nick carried a blanket and a few teddy bears past a freestanding baby rocker to a cardboard box. Suddenly, as he passed it, the rocker began moving on it's own. Nick turned to look at it with a panicked look before walking over to stop it. When a baby's crying noise filled the air, he looked over at the cardboard box before running to it, digging through it frantically to find the baby monitor that was emitting the noise. He stared at it, just listening. Then he turned to look at the stairs before walking up. As he opened the door to the nursery, the crying went silent. He stared at the crib for a moment once he turned on the light and nothing happened. He turned away and the crying began again. When he turned back, blood began pouring out of the crib and onto the carpet.

"No." he breathed, stumbling to the crib and falling to his knees, sobbing loudly as the crying filled his ears.

Suddenly it stopped and he looked up to see that the blood was gone and everything was back to normal.

* * *

Elena ran behind Sam and Dean as they ran into the ER still supporting Bobby, who was covered in blood.

"Need some help here!" Dean shouted.

"What happened?" a nurse asked as she ran forward.

"He was stabbed." Sam said.

"Can we get a gurney?" the nurse demanded when she saw how pale Bobby was.

Two nurses rushed a gurney over and Sam and Dean hauled him up onto it.

"Hang on, Bobby. Hang in there. You're gonna be okay." Dean said before they rushed the gurney off.

They moved to follow but a nurse stopped them.

"Just wait here." She said.

"We can't just leave him." Sam said desperately, looking after the man they thought of as their father.

"Just don't move. I've got questions." she said, turning to walk off.

"Sammy, we got to go." Dean said, tugging at his brother's arm.

"No. No way, Dean." Sam resisted.

"The demons heard where the sword is. We got to get to it before they do, if we're not too late already. Come on!" Dean said, grabbing Elena's hand and turning to leave.

They checked back to make sure Sam was following as they ran out of the hospital.

* * *

They were all tense as they walked up to the storage unit. Each of them were holding shotguns at the ready. Dean reached out and unlocked the door quickly before they walked in. They were immediately greeted with the sight of two dead demons.

"I see you told the demons where the sword is." A voice said from behind them.

They whirled around to see Zachariah standing there with the same two angels escorting him.

"Oh, thank god. The angels are here." Dean snapped.

"And to think... they could have grabbed it any time they wanted." Zachariah chuckled, waving his hand to close the door.

As they were distracted, one of the angels launched forward and grabbed Elena, pulling her away from the brothers and behind Zachariah.

"Hey!" Dean shouted as she struggled against their strength as both angels held her in place.

"It was right in front of them." Zachariah shrugged, continuing as if his angels hadn't just taken possession of Elena.

"What do you mean?" Sam demanded.

"Let her go!" Dean growled, not caring about Zachariah's words.

"We may have planted that particular piece of prophecy inside Chuck's skull, but it happened to be true. We did lose the Michael sword. We truly couldn't find it. Until now. You've just hand-delivered it to us." He said happily.

"We don't have anything. Let her go now!" Dean said, glaring at the angel.

"It's you, chucklehead. You're the Michael sword." Zachariah informed him.

Dean simply stared at him.

"What, you thought you could actually kill Lucifer? You simpering wad of insecurity and self-loathing? No. You're just a human, Dean. And not much of one." Zachariah laughed.

"What do you mean, I'm the sword?" Dean demanded.

"You're Michael's weapon. Or, rather, his... receptacle." He informed him.

"I'm a vessel?" Dean asked, skeptical.

"You're the vessel. Michael's vessel." Zachariah nodded in confirmation.

"How? Why… why me?" Dean asked.

"Because you're chosen! It's a great honor, Dean." He assured the older Winchester.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, life as an angel condom. That's real fun. I think I'll pass, thanks." Dean scoffed, shaking his head.

"Joking. Always joking. Well...no more jokes." Zachariah said, raising his hand and pointing his fingers like a gun at Dean.

Then he switched directions to Sam.

"Bang."

A loud cracking noise filled the room and Sam fell to the ground shouting in pain.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean shouted as Elena screamed in panic.

"Keep mouthing off, I'll break more than his legs. I am completely and utterly through screwing around. The war has begun. We don't have our general. That's bad. Now, Michael is going to take his vessel and lead the final charge against the adversary. You understand me?" Zachariah said, staring unemotionally at Dean.

"How many humans die in the crossfire, huh? A million? Five, ten?" Dean demanded.

"Probably more. If Lucifer goes unchecked, you know how many die? All of them. He'll roast the planet alive." The angel fired back.

"There's a reason you're telling me this instead of just nabbing me. You need my consent. Michael needs my say-so to ride around in my skin." Dean said, finding the loophole.

"Unfortunately, yes." Zachariah sighed.

"Well, there's got to be another way." Dean said, his eyes shifting to Elena's panicked face as she stared back and forth between him and writhing Sam.

"There is no other way. There must be a battle. Michael must defeat the serpent. It is written." Zachariah said.

"Yeah, maybe. But, on the other hand... eat me. The answer's no." Dean snapped, glaring a him.

"Okay. How about this? Your friend Bobby… we know he's gravely injured. Say yes, and we'll heal him. Say no, he'll never walk again." Zachariah suggested.

Elena and Sam glanced at Dean, afraid that he would take the deal.

"No." Dean said, shaking his head.

"Then how about we heal you from... stage-four stomach cancer?" he said, looking at Dean with narrowed eyes.

Dean suddenly doubled over coughing and spitting up blood in his hand.

"No." he choked out, falling to his knees.

"Then let's get really creative." Zachariah said, turning towards Elena who was still being held by the demons.

"Don't you touch her, you son of a bitch!" Dean gasped, clutching at his stomach.

"Let's see… how you do without your precious guardian." He lifted his hand and twisted it.

An even louder cracking filled the air and the brothers watched on with horror as Elena's body twisted grotesquely and she fell to the floor with blank eyes.

"No!" they both shouted, emotional and physical pain in their voices.

"Say yes and I'll revive her." Zachariah said simply, turning to Dean. "Are we having fun yet? You're going to say yes, Dean."

"Just kill us." Dean said, staring at Elena's lifeless body with fear in his eyes.

"Kill you? Oh, no. I'm just getting started." Zachariah chuckled, lifting his hand towards Sam.

Suddenly a bright light filled the room and Zachariah turned to see one of his angels collapsing, a bloody hole in his throat. Castiel stood just behind him holding an angel-killing sword. The other angel launched forward to fight Castiel. Sam, Dean, and Zachariah watched as the fight unfolded. After they slammed each other around a few times, Castiel finally got the upper hand and shoved the angel against the wall before shoving the blade through his chest. Bright light flashed once again and Zachariah stared as Castiel backed away and turned to face them.

"How are you...?" Zachariah began.

"Alive? That's a good question. How did these two end up on that airplane? Another good question. Cause the angels didn't do it. I think we both know the answer, don't we?" Castiel said, narrowing his eyes at the other angel.

"No. That's not possible." Zachariah said, shaking his head.

"It scares you. Well, it should. Now, put these boys back together and go. I won't ask twice." Castiel threatened.

Suddenly Zachariah vanished and the boys looked up at Castiel with shocked expressions as he walked over to kneel next to Elena. He pressed a hand to her forehead and she gasped, sitting up with a small cry. Her eyes drifted upwards slowly to rest on his face.

"Cas?" she breathed.

"Yes. I am…" he began.

The breath was knocked out of his human vessel when she tackled him in a hug, tears already filling her eyes as she squeezed him to her.

"You're alive." She whimpered, clutching at him.

"Yes, I seem to be alive." He agreed.

She pulled away slowly and continued to stare at him.

"It was God, wasn't it?" she asked.

He nodded and stood, helping her to her feet.

"The king did put you back together." She said with a grin, thinking back on her conversation with Gabriel.

Cas turned to Dean.

"You three need to be more careful." He informed them.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that. Your frat brothers are bigger dicks than I thought." Dean said, looking at Elena with a relieved expression.

"I don't mean the angels. Lucifer is circling his vessel. And once he takes it, those hex bags won't be enough to protect you." he said, walking forward to put one hand on Dean's chest and the other on Sam's.

They gasped loudly and pushed away from him as they felt a strange feeling. Castiel turned and put a hand on Elena's chest as well, making her shift uncomfortably before she felt the same weird feeling.

"What the hell was that?" Dean demanded, massaging his ribs.

"An Enochian sigil. It'll hide you from every angel in creation, including Lucifer." The angel explained.

"What, did you just brand us with it?" Elena asked.

"No. I carved it into your ribs." He said.

There was a pause in which they all looked around at each other.

"Hey, Cas, were you really dead?" Sam asked.

"Yes." He nodded.

"Then how are you back?" Dean asked.

Castiel looked back at Elena before nodding and vanishing.

* * *

**Pike Creek, Delaware**

Nick was lying on the bed in his empty bedroom.

"Nick." He sat up, seeing his wife, Sarah, standing at the foot of the bed.

"Nick. You're dreaming, Nick. But it doesn't mean this isn't real." She said softly.

"Sarah?" he questioned carefully.

"I'm not your wife, Nick. I'm an angel." She said, looking down at him.

"An angel?" Nick questioned.

"My name is Lucifer." she said.

"Sure. Naturally. Um... could you do me a favor there, Satan, and remind me to quit drinking before I go to bed?" he said, shaking his head.

"I'm here because you're special, Nick. There's very, very few people like you." Lucifer said, smiling at him.

"Is that so?" Nick asked.

"You're a vessel… a very powerful vessel." Lucifer informed him.

Nick turned to swing his legs off of the bed.

"Meaning what, exactly?" he asked.

"I need to take control of your mind and your body. To be honest, it'll probably be unpleasant for you. But it is necessary."

"Okay, look... if it's just the same to you, I think I'd like to wake up now." Nick said.

"I told you… this is real. Don't be afraid. This is your choice." Lucifer said, sitting on the bed next to him. "You need to invite me in."

"Even if this is real… which it's not, but assuming it was... why the hell would I do something like that?" he demanded.

"You people misunderstand me. You call me 'Satan' and 'devil', but... do you know my crime? I loved God too much. And for that, he betrayed me… punished me. Just as he's punished you. After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds?" Lucifer asked.

Nick turned his head and swallowed hard.

"There are only two rational answers, Nick… either he's sadistic, or he simply doesn't care. You're angry. You have every right to be angry. I am angry, too. That's why I want to find him… hold him accountable for his actions. Just because he created us doesn't mean he can toy with us, like playthings." Lucifer said, trying to convince him.

"If I help you... can you bring back my family?" Nick asked hesitantly.

"I'm sorry. I can't. But I can give you the next best thing. God did this to you, Nick. And I can give you justice. Peace." Lucifer said.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" he asked, staring at him.

"Because, contrary to popular belief, I don't lie. I don't need to. What I need...is you. Nick, I need you to say yes."

Nick closed his eyes, remembering the blood pouring from the crib and the devastating crying.

"Then yes." He nodded.

* * *

"Unlikely to walk again? Why, you snot-nosed son of a bitch! Wait till I get out of this bed!" They heard Bobby's raised voice as they walked down the hallway.

They exchanged wary glances as a doctor fled out of the room and they walked in.

"I'll use my game leg and kick your friggin' ass! Yeah, you better run!" he shouted.

He looked up at them as they walked in.

"You believe that yahoo?" he demanded, shaking his head as he lay there in his bed.

"Screw him. You'll be fine." Dean shrugged off, making Elena give him a questioning stare at the possible false hope he was giving Bobby.

She'd already tried to heal him again but the angels must have been holding her back because there wasn't a single thing she could do.

"So, let me ask the million-dollar question. What do we do now?" Sam asked after a few moments of silence.

"Well... we save as many as we can for as long as we can, I guess. It's bad. Whoever wins, heaven or hell, we're boned." Bobby shrugged.

"What if we win?" Dean asked.

They all stared at him, wondering why he sounded so confident.

"I'm serious. I mean, screw the angels and the demons and their crap apocalypse. Hell, they want to fight a war, they can find their own planet. This one's ours, and I say they get the hell off it. We take 'em all on. We kill the devil. Hell, we even kill Michael if we have to. But we do it our own damn selves." Dean suggested.

"And how are we supposed to do all this, genius?" Bobby demanded.

"I got no idea. But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell attitude, and I'll figure it out." the older brother said with a smirk.

"You are nine kinds of crazy, boy." Bobby said, shaking his head.

"It's been said." Dean shrugged before patting Bobby's shoulder. "Listen, you stay on the mend. We'll see you in a bit."

Elena smiled and bent down, pressing a kiss to the older hunter's cheek.

"See you later, Bobby." She said softly before turning to walk out with Dean.

Sam turned to walk beside her but Bobby's voice stopped all three of them.

"Sam?" he said. "I was awake. I know what I said back there. I just want you to know that... that was the demon talking. I ain't cutting you out, boy. Not ever."

There was a long pause before Sam sighed heavily.

"Thanks, Bobby." He said.

"You're welcome. I deserve a damn medal for this, but... you're welcome." Bobby said, rolling his eyes as they walked out the door.

* * *

"You know, I was thinking… maybe we could go after the Colt." Sam suggested as they walked out into the cold air.

"Why? What difference would that make?" Dean questioned as they walked across the parking lot.

"Well, we could use it on Lucifer. I mean, you just said back there…" Sam trailed off.

Dean stopped and turned to face him, making Elena stop and stare at him questioningly.

"I just said a bunch of crap for Bobby's benefit." He said.

Elena stared at him with a questioning look.

"I mean, I'll fight. I'll fight till the last man, but let's at least be honest. I mean, we don't stand a snowball's chance, and you know that. I mean, hell, you of all people know that." he said, scoffing as he shook his head and turned to walk to the Impala.

"Dean..." Sam said, stopping him and making him turn back again. "Is there something you want to say to me?"

There was a long pause and part of Elena prayed that Dean would say no, that he would leave it alone like he had been doing.

"I tried, Sammy." He sighed.

Elena bowed her head and knew that everything was about to blow up.

"I mean, I really tried. But I just can't keep pretending that everything's all right. Because it's not. And it's never going to be. You chose a demon over your own brother…"

Sam bowed his head and shook it.

"… and look what happened." He finished.

"I would give anything… anything… to take it all back." Sam assured him.

"I know you would. And I know how sorry you are. I do. But, man... you were always the one that I depended on the most. For our whole lives, you know? And you let me down in ways that I can't even..." Dean sighed, struggling for words as his brow furrowed and a frown settled even deeper on his face.

"I'm just… I'm having a hard time forgiving and forgetting here. You know?" he said.

"What can I do?" Sam asked desperately.

"Honestly? Nothing." Dean said simply.

Sam nodded and looked down, not surprised by this conclusion. Elena turned to walk to the Impala, not wanting to intrude on the conversation more than she already had. But she could still hear it from where she was.

"I just don't… I don't think that we can ever be what we were. You know?" Dean sighed.

Sam nodded again as he even expected that his big brother would say that.

"I just don't think I can trust you."

Sam's head snapped up and Elena noticed that he didn't expect for Dean to come to that conclusion. Dean shook his head, turning to walk to the Impala. He paused at the trunk, turning to look back at Sam before walking the rest of the way. They got in at the same time, waiting for Sam to get in the backseat. Dean looked down at his hands.

"I… have no idea if I just did the right thing. Did I? I mean, was I too harsh?" he asked, looking over at her.

Elena looked back at him.

"It's not my job to hold grudges against Sam, Dean." She sighed.

"But it's my job?" he asked, sounding offended.

"No, it's your job to hold him up to a high standard. You're disappointed when he doesn't reach that standard and with good reasons. He's your brother. You're supposed to expect the best of him. That's just not my job. I have no idea if you were too harsh back there because I'm biased. I've used tough love on my brother so I know the basic concept." She said, looking down at her hands.

They were interrupted from speaking anymore as Sam climbed into the backseat. Dean sighed and put the car in reverse, turning to drive away. Each inhabitant of the car had a heavy heart as they drove down the road.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!**

**Next: When the hospital where Bobby is staying is put in danger, Elena, Dean, and Sam must figure out what is going on before a lot of people die. **


	2. Holy Water Cannot Help You Now

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks so much to beverlie4055, blahblahblah93, xxPaige23xx, Nyssandria, Dean Winchester Rocks, TheElegantFaerie, RHatch89, and JMHUW for reviewing!**

**CHAPTER TITLE: Seven Devils – Florence + the Machine**

**A few things:**

**1. All right, so this is an experimental chapter. I am writing a case that isn't on the show. I haven't done this yet. Please be nice even if you hate it (like I do). Thank you!**

**2. This chapter, some side effects from Zachariah killing Elena are shown in this chapter. She might seem a little OOC but I promise there's a reason for it.**

**3. Elena and Dean fight, sorry guys. But everyone is stressed. Apocalypse.**

**4. Elena's outfit is on my profile.**

**5. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

Elena pasted a smile on her face as the elevator doors opened. She immediately caught sight of the nurse's station in front of her.

"Hey, Elena." the nurse on call, Sharon, said.

"Hey, Sharon. How is he today?" she questioned, grinning at the older woman.

"He's cranky, as usual. Still refuses to talk but grunts and growls every time I tell him to do something." Sharon said, rolling her eyes.

"That's Bobby for you." Elena said, shaking her head with a smile as she turned to walk to his room.

"You know, you really shouldn't be here! It's not visiting hours!" the nurse called after her.

"You're not gonna kick me out, Sharon!" Elena said back over her shoulder.

"Yeah, just cause you keep him from bothering me while you're here." Sharon replied.

Elena let out a short laugh as she pushed the door open. She immediately caught sight of Bobby sitting at the window with a robe on and his cap firmly in place.

"I brought you something." She said, walking in and placing the paper grocery bags that she was carrying on the bed.

She sighed when he didn't even acknowledge her presence. Instead of talking to him further, she turned and closed all of the blinds on the door and window so that no one could see into the room. Then she walked to the bags and pulled out the six pack of beer that she brought.

"I'm absolutely positive that this is against hospital policy but no one searched my bag so I got away with it." she said.

Elena opened one of the bottles and carrying it to him, kneeling in front of Bobby as she handed it to him. He brought the bottle up to his mouth automatically, still staring past her out the window.

"You will talk to me, Bobby Singer." She said with narrowed eyes, pointing at him.

His eyes flashed with amusement but nothing else happened. That little break in his cold exterior was enough for her for now.

"I also brought some sandwiches and leftover pie of Dean's that he didn't need if you decide that you're tired of mashed potatoes and jello." She informed him, walking to the chair to sit in it with her own beer in her hand.

He looked over at her with the same question in his eyes that she'd seen every night since he ended up in the hospital. Why was she there? Why wasn't she at the motel with the boys sleeping?

"You know I'm not gonna answer to you until you say something." She said with a shrug.

He narrowed his eyes and she smiled.

"You are stubborn as hell, you know that?" he finally grumbled.

Elena grinned even wider and looked up at the clock on the wall.

"April 17. 11:59 P.M. The date and time that Elena Gilbert outlasted Bobby Singer's stubbornness!" she proclaimed triumphantly.

"Would you shut it and get me a glass of water?" he said, shaking his head at her.

"Sure thing." She said with a silly grin still on her face. She hopped up to grab a glass off of his table and walked into the bathroom.

She hummed happily, momentarily forgetting why she was avoiding sleep so much, as she turned on the water to fill it. Elena looked up into the mirror as it filled up, frowning at the bags underneath her eyes and her messily thrown up hair. She'd rushed out of the motel room as soon as Sam and Dean fell asleep, not really caring about her appearance.

She realized that she'd stopped paying attention to the water when something warm rushed over her hand. At the exact same moment, she remembered that she'd turned the water on freezing cold and a scream echoed down the hallway outside of the room. Elena looked down to see that her hand and the sink were covered in blood. She let out a cry of shock and jumped back, dropping the blood filled glass on the ground and watching as it shattered.

"Elena?" Bobby questioned in a panicked voice from outside.

He wheeled himself to the door to see the blood splattered everywhere.

"Did you cut yourself?" he asked.

Elena shook her head and pointed a shaking hand at the faucet that was still pouring out the sticky substance. Bobby stared at it with wide eyes as she walked forward and shut it off. Then she turned to a towel and picked it up, wiping her hand off as best she could.

"What the hell?" Bobby breathed.

"I don't know." Elena replied in a soft voice as she backed out of the bathroom with a pale face.

When another scream reached their ears, she turned to run out of the hospital room to see what was going on. Sharon came running by holding a blood-soaked towel.

"Sharon?" Elena called, running up to her.

"It's everywhere. All of the faucets. The toilets. The showers. Everything. All of the water is blood." She said, her eyes wide and fearful.

"I know, I saw." Elena nodded.

"It's the devil. I know it." Sharon said, tears filling her eyes as she clutched at a cross around her neck and turned to run off once more.

Elena stared around with shock as she pulled out her cell phone slowly. She hated that she had to make this phone call but she did.

"Hello?" a groggy voice answered.

"H-hey. Dean, it's me. I-I'm at the hospital with Bobby. You'd better get down here." She said in a shaky voice as she listened to the panic rising around her.

* * *

She was waiting at the door when they came running up. Luckily, she'd walked to the hospital so they had the Impala to drive there.

"Blood?" Dean demanded as they ran in.

"It was everywhere. In everything. I don't know if it's still going on. I heard that they shut the water off to make it stop but every time they turn on the faucets more comes out." she explained as they walked to the elevator and rode up to Bobby's room.

"When did it start?" Sam asked as they walked into the room.

Elena looked at them for a moment before looking back at Bobby for help.

"It was midnight. Exactly at midnight. Remember you read the clock before you went in the bathroom." He reminded her, shocking the two brothers by actually speaking.

"Right. Midnight. It was midnight." She nodded, turning back to them.

"That can't be a coincidence." Dean acknowledged.

"Do you think it's something demonic? Should we be looking for sulfur or something?" Elena asked, still a little shaky from the experience.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked, finally noticing that she was still quite pale.

"Fine. I'm fine. I just… it was a little bit of a shock." she nodded, sitting down on Bobby's bed.

"Why were you here, anyways?" Dean asked, making her head snap up to him.

"I couldn't sleep. I decided to come visit Bobby and bring him stuff." She said quickly, gesturing to the bags.

"Mm-hm… and the night before that? Oh and the night before that?" Dean asked, sounding accusatory all of the sudden.

Elena stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Leave the poor girl alone, Dean. She was making sure this old man wasn't lonely." Bobby said, shaking his head with disappointment at Dean's attitude.

"She couldn't have done that during the day, huh?" Dean said, looking over at the older hunter.

"I can do it whenever I damn well please, Dean Winchester. I'm not sure when you got the idea that you get to dictate my schedule but I can guarantee you that you do no such thing. I go where I please when I please and you do not get to say a thing to change that." she snapped, standing up and pointing at him defensively.

He looked taken aback at her sudden outburst.

"It doesn't work like that, Elena." he argued.

"Well then change the rules, Dean." She shot back.

They glared at each other for a moment.

"Okay, guys, I don't think this is the time for a fight. We have to figure out how there is blood coming out of the plumbing." Sam said.

Elena sighed and turned away from Dean.

"It's 12:27. Whatever it is, it's still going on and shows no sign of stopping." She said, sitting back down.

"So, let's ask people what happened?" Sam suggested.

"I think they'll all tell us the same thing. They turned on the water and at exactly midnight, it turned to blood." Elena said.

All of the males' heads snapped to her.

"Water… into blood?" Dean said.

She looked up at him and nodded.

"Yeah." Elena said, realizing what they did.

"Like… uh… Exodus?" Bobby said, looking thoughtful.

"Well… it is the apocalypse." Dean shrugged.

"How do we know if it's the plagues or whatever?" Sam asked.

"Well, I guess we wait. There's nothing else to do." Dean suggested.

"Wait? Wait on the ten plagues of Egypt?" Bobby asked.

"Well I think we should figure out if the water into blood thing happened everywhere or just at the hospital." Elena threw in.

"That's a good idea, one of you two idjits, go down to the police station and get information on that." Bobby instructed.

"I'll go." Sam said.

"No, I'll go." Dean decided, standing up and pulling his keys out.

"Dean, why can't I go?" Sam scoffed.

"Because I don't trust you with my baby. Now take care of them and the hospital." Dean said, turning to walk out.

Elena watched him go with narrowed eyes before turning to Bobby.

"So… what's the next plague?" she asked.

"Frogs." He said.

"Frogs?" Elena and Sam questioned at the same time.

"Yep." The older man nodded, looking less than impressed.

* * *

Elena's leg bounced nervously as the clock ticked closer to 1:00 A.M. The chaos that erupted from the water-blood thing had died down a bit but she felt that it was all about to pick up again.

"Do you need some morphine?" Bobby asked as she jumped up and began pacing.

"I don't like this." she said, glancing back at them.

"I don't think anyone does." Bobby replied.

"No, it's just… I know that… at some point… there's gonna be some freaking bugs!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Well… maybe we're wrong. Maybe it'll just be the blood." Bobby said.

Elena was cut off from answering as Dean came back in.

"I went to the station. They said it didn't happen anywhere else. It was just…" the older Winchester was cut off by a loud croaking noise.

He stared at all of them with shock as they froze out of surprise.

"Was that… a frog?" He questioned.

Elena turned slowly to look at the clock to see that it was exactly 1:00. The noise sounded again and they turned to see a frog sitting in the doorway.

"It's staring at us." Elena said, shifting to stand behind Bobby's wheelchair.

A scream erupted from the hallway followed by a few more.

"So… about those plagues." Bobby said as they saw several more frogs hop down the hallway.

"There's hundreds of them!" Someone screamed.

"Close the door!" Elena cried as they heard croaking from the hallway.

Sam darted forward and slammed the door shut. They all peeked through the blinds to see, sure enough, a hoard frogs hopping down the hallway as people ran away and stood on counters and chairs. One nurse was smacking at them with a clipboard as they attempted to leap up onto the chair that she was cowering on.

"I think we can safely say the ten plagues are upon us… in this hospital." Bobby nodded.

* * *

"This is happening in different hospitals all across the country." Sam said as he flipped through television stations.

"There seems to be a pattern to it. It starts on the hour and goes for thirty minutes before stopping. Then the next thing starts thirty minutes later." Elena said as she watched through the blinds as several animal control people were rounding up the frogs.

"How do we stop it?" Dean asked, turning to look at them.

"We don't." Bobby said.

They looked at him.

"It's the damn apocalypse, ya idgits. You can stop this just about as easy as they could stop it the first time it happened." He scoffed. "The next two plagues are bugs. We may want to line the doors and windows with towels or something to keep them out."

"Shouldn't we go warn everyone?" Elena asked.

"You don't think they've figured it out?" Dean said.

"If they haven't, they won't believe us if we tell them." Bobby threw in.

"Well we can still try. People are gonna start dying pretty soon. Isn't the last plague literally people dying?" Elena said.

They all exchanged wary glances.

"We need to get everyone out of the hospital instead of trying to barricade ourselves in. If we can get them away, it won't matter what happens."

"It's worth a try." Sam said, earning a grateful glance from Elena.

* * *

No one wanted to approach Elena once they regrouped in Bobby's room. She was sitting in the corner glaring at the clock, which was three minutes away from 2 AM. They had every single person they tried to convince laugh in their face. Doctors. Security guards. Even two police officers chuckled and sent them away, saying that it was all a coincidence at that the liquid coming out of the pipes had been rusty water, not blood.

"We gave it our best shot, Elena." Sam said reassuringly.

"We can't let these people stay here." She said, shaking her head.

"All right well we have a few plagues to convince these people of what's happening. Let them live through the hoard of flies and see if they are still so unwilling to believe." Bobby shrugged.

Elena shook her head and stood to help Sam and Dean block up the room so that, hopefully, no bugs would come in. They also blocked all of the drains and the air vents just in case. They heard the buzzing come and the screams began once again. None of them bothered to go to the window, all of them remaining in place and hoping that they would be protected against the bugs. Once it reached the 2:45 mark, the buzzing went away. Sam and Dean stood slowly, walking to the window to peek through it. A nurse was standing there looking confused and nothing looked wrong with anything. It had all disappeared just like the blood and the frogs eventually did. They opened the door cautiously to see the hallway was empty.

"It all disappeared." The nurse said, looking at Elena, Dean, and Sam with wide eyes as chaos continued to erupt around them.

"Are they evacuating yet?" Elena asked.

"No, we haven't gotten any official orders to evacuate. They think it's just a bad bug problem." She said, turning to walk off.

Elena sighed frustratingly.

"We need to get these people out of here. These plagues are going to get worse and worse." She said desperately.

"How are we supposed to do that?" Dean questioned.

She turned to him and sighed.

"I don't know." Elena said, feeling a lot of weight on her shoulders.

"Yeah, exactly." He nodded, his voice icy as he spoke to her.

"Well I don't see you spouting out ideas!" she snapped, glaring at him.

"Well excuse me for being stumped by the freaking plagues happening every hour!" he growled back.

"Guys stop!" Sam said, getting between them. "This isn't helping anything."

He steered them back into Bobby's room.

"What's next?" Elena asked, refusing to look at Dean as she addressed Bobby.

"Flies." He sighed.

"Great, more bugs." She said, shaking her head as she walked to the window to look outside at the dark sky.

"Yeah, we have about ten minutes." Sam said, looking up at the clock.

"You think they're gonna believe us after this one?" Dean questioned skeptically.

"They have to." Bobby said.

* * *

If she already didn't look horrible, Elena looked even worse when millions of flies began slamming into the windows of the hospital. It seemed like they were contained to the outside for some reason. Her face became pale and she backed away from the window as they hit it, turning it completely black. Screams filled the air, as normal, from outside the hospital room.

"I'm going to be sick." She mumbled.

Like the other plagues, it ended around the half hour mark. Elena stood slowly and opened the door to see that there wasn't a single speck and that people were milling about looking panicked, as usual. She looked back to see that the window was clear, all of the dead flies had disappeared. When she walked to it and looked down, she saw people streaming out of the hospital.

"I think that…" she began.

"Alert. Alert. Evacuate. Evacuate." A voice came over the intercom.

"It's about damn time." Dean groaned, standing up.

They turned to walk out, Sam pushing Bobby who was holding the remainder of the beers. Sharon ran up to them, looking flustered as she stopped them.

"We can't evacuate." She said, gesturing to the other people in wheelchairs.

"Why not?" Dean demanded.

"The elevators are shut down. There's no way to get out. We're on the tenth floor so we can't very well carry everyone down. They're trying to figure out what to do… but…" she said, looking horrified.

"Sharon… you know what's going on. You have the cross around your neck. We have to get out of here." Elena said desperately.

"There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry. You have to stay in your room until we figure it out." she said, looking sympathetic and fearful at the same time.

Elena looked at Dean and Sam with wide eyes. Once they retreated back to their room, Elena sighed and leaned against the wall, bending over and putting her hands on her knees.

"We have the worst luck." She lamented.

"Yeah, yeah we do." Sam agreed, sitting on Bobby's bed next to Dean.

"You should leave." Bobby said, turning to face them.

"What?" Elena asked, looking up at him.

"You three can walk down the stairs. You should go, get out of here." He urged them.

"Hell no, Bobby." Sam said, shaking his head.

"We're not leaving you here." Elena agreed.

"Don't be stupid. You shouldn't put yourself in danger." He snapped.

"We're not leaving you, Bobby!" Dean growled, finality in his voice that said this was the end of that conversation.

The older man glared around at them and shook his head.

"The next plague is cattle dying. I'm not entirely certain how that's going to affect us. Maybe cows are gonna wander in and die. Then the next one is boils. Not sure how there's any way of us avoiding that particular beauty. Then hail and thunder. That's easy enough to avoid, don't go outside. Then locusts…" Bobby turned to Elena, disgust on his face. "Gross little creatures, they'll get all over you if they get into this room. Crawl on you and…"

Bobby cut off, satisfied by her horrified shudder.

"Then darkness. All right so the power goes out. You know what comes next? The death of the firstborn. You know how I imagine that? Every single firstborn person in this hospital's vicinity dying. And guess who happens to be firstborn. Oh that's right, you are, Dean. You too, Elena. I'm a firstborn. So it looks like Sam is the only one who makes it out of here alive. So you get your asses out of here, now!" Bobby shouted.

"No!" The three stubborn younger hunters yelled back at him.

* * *

Elena looked with a disgusted look at the different piles of vomit in the hallway that the poor janitor was forced to clean up.

"See? Aren't you glad I brought you sandwiches now? I kept you from eating the cafeteria's mystery meat that just so happened to give everyone food poisoning for an hour." She said proudly, turning to smirk at Bobby who was still glaring around at all of them.

"I have to give props to anyone who's controlling this. That was an… imaginative way… for them to do the cattle thing." Sam said, sitting on the floor.

"See if you're still giving props when boils come along." Bobby snapped as they all nodded with slight smiles.

They all sighed and retreated to their separate corners of the room.

"At least they got everyone else out." Elena said.

"Yeah." The two brothers nodded.

They all watched as the clock wound down and just waited for the screams to begin. None came and they exchanged wary looks.

"You don't think it just… stopped?" Elena wondered as they walked to the door hesitantly and pulled it open to see that the hallway was completely deserted.

"Oh my God! Help!" a cry rose.

"Nope, no it didn't." Sam said as they all ran in the direction of the cry.

They stopped in the doorway of a room to find a family crowded around an old man in a bed.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked.

"He just got these… things!" one woman screeched, moving out of the way so that they could see him.

They stared at him with wide eyes.

"Boils." Dean nodded.

"Definitely boils." Sam and Elena agreed.

They were covering his entire face and body from what they could see.

"Why aren't the rest of us affected?" Elena wondered as they walked down the hallway to peek into rooms.

"Well so far, we've only seen people over the age of sixty with them. So only affects old geezers?" Dean suggested.

"Real nice way to put that, Dean." She snapped.

He turned to glare at her and opened his mouth to fire something back at her.

"Nope! No time for that!" Sam interrupted, grabbing their arms and steering them back to Bobby's room.

* * *

When they went back into the room and explained the situation to Bobby, he shrugged, not knowing what to say. None of them did. They were six plagues in with no sign of stopping and Elena looked as though she was about to pass out from exhaustion.

"Elena, do you want to lie down and try to sleep?" Sam asked hesitantly.

She turned to him and shook her head from where she was standing at the window, waiting for storm clouds to gather for the hail and thunder.

"Are you sure? You look like you're about to fall over." Bobby informed her.

She sighed and shook her head.

"I'm fine." She snapped before turning to walk out of the room.

"Where are you going?" They all asked at once.

"I need a minute." She mumbled, walking out of the room.

The males exchanged looks before Dean followed her. He watched as she immediately slid into an empty patient room. When he walked in, he found her sitting on the bed facing the window.

"You want to tell me what the hell is going on? Huh? The real reason you've been disappearing from the motel at all hours of the night? Why I've been waking up every night wondering where the hell you've gone and praying that you return in the morning?" he demanded.

He saw her shoulders move and thought that she was sighing until they moved again and then began shaking.

"Elena?" he said.

She let out a strangled noise and he ran to stand in front of her. Tears were streaming down her face as she sobbed heavily.

"No." she cried, pushing him away as he reached for her. "I don't… I can't…"

"Elena, please tell me what's wrong. You're scaring me." he said desperately, grabbing her hands with a terrified face.

"I'm so tired!" she wailed.

He stared at her with wide eyes.

"I can't… I can't… I haven't slept since… Zachariah killed me. I keep seeing… every time I close my eyes…" she choked out between sobs as her body trembled violently in his arms.

"Hey, hey… shh." He said, sitting her on the bed again and pushing her face back, brushing her hair away and wiping the tears off of her face.

It didn't do much good as they kept coming.

"Hey, take a deep breath." He said.

The deep breath ended up as a wail and he sighed, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her.

"Calm down, Elena. Shh… I'm here." He said.

"I saw you dying! Over and over again! You and Sam! I think I was in hell!" she cried against his chest. "That was my hell, you dying. I couldn't stop it. I was frozen. I just kept seeing it and… it felt like it went on for days. Then I woke up and Cas was there and… I thought that I was still in hell and that I was never going to see you again!"

He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to comfort her. He'd been to hell but his experience was completely different. He wondered if she was even in hell or if the angels had put her in that situation to torture her. Because there was no way that Elena would naturally go to hell. There was no possible way.

"I can't sleep… that's why I keep leaving. I can't sleep because I keep seeing you both dying in my mind when I try. So I stay awake but I'm afraid of being alone because I know that I'll think about it. That's why I come here with Bobby because it distracts me." she whimpered, her cries slowly diminishing.

He pulled her away and looked her in the eyes, this time able to dry up her tears for good.

"I'm sorry." Dean sighed, stroking her cheek as she stared at him with devastated eyes. "I should have known better. I should have asked you instead of yelling at you. I was just afraid after… the thing with the doors. You've done it twice now. And the first time… your eyes."

"What about my eyes?" she asked, confused.

"I thought maybe it was a trick or I was seeing things. When we were at the convent and you slammed those doors opened your eyes turned blue for a second." He said.

Elena stared at him with wide eyes.

"Why am I developing new powers now? I thought I was supposed to just have the healing and the super strength. Cas didn't tell me about anything else. It doesn't make any sense." she wondered.

"No, it doesn't." he said, shaking his head.

Elena sighed and buried her head in his chest.

"Dean, you have to stop with the whole, 'I have know where you are at all times', thing." She mumbled.

He remained silent.

"I'm not saying that because I'm confident in my abilities to protect myself or anything. I'm not being cocky. I'm saying that because I'm a person. I'm an independent person who has spent eighteen years figuring out how to keep herself alive without your help. Sure, I might have failed once or twice but I've come back so far, haven't I?" she looked up at him to see him gritting his teeth. "I know that you've lost people, Dean. I have too. And I recognize that, because of that, you want to keep the people you care about on a short leash but… I'm not a dog. I'm a person. A separate being and I need that reassurance sometimes. I need to feel like I can go on a walk or go see Bobby at the hospital without you flipping your shit."

Elena reached out, putting her hand on his cheek.

"I care about you too. I haven't asked for much but I'm asking for this. Please." She whispered.

"Can you promise that you'll return to me every time?" He asked, trying not to sound emotional but failing as his voice sounded rough with emotion.

His eyes flickered down to hers and she bit her lip and shook her head.

"I can't see the future, Dean. I can't ever promise that. I could slip and fall in the shower and not come back to you. But…" she took his face in her hands when he turned to look away from her, trying to hide his emotions. "I can promise you that I will try like hell to come back to you every damn time. Nothing will get in the way of me trying to come back to you."

Dean stared at her with emotion filled eyes before his lips crashed down on hers. She responded in kind like she always did. They fell back onto the bed as they kissed. Lightning flashed through the window and they both looked over at it.

"The apocalypse." He sighed, letting his head fall to lie on her chest.

"Yeah." She said, leaning her head back as they continued to lie there.

Sam came running in a moment later.

"Oh! Sorry!" he said, clapping a hand over his eyes as he saw their position.

"It's all right, Sam. For once, you're not interrupting anything." Elena sighed with a slight smile.

"Well, just thought I'd let you know that we figured out something bad about the darkness plague." He said.

Elena and Dean jumped up and walked into Bobby's room, and the man himself was rolling back and forth nervously.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you two made up…" he said, looking at Dean and Elena's entwined hands. "… but we've got a problem. The power goes out, anyone who is hooked up life support is gone."

"No, Bobby they have a backup generator for that." Elena said.

"You really think that's gonna work? Whoever is controlling this, if anyone is controlling this, wants people dead, people are gonna die." He said.

They exchanged wary looks.

"So we have the rest of this hailstorm and the locusts to get everyone out of here." She sighed.

"Yeah, and then the darkness and then the firstborn slayings begin." Bobby said.

* * *

"Sharon you have got to listen to me…" Elena said desperately.

"What am I supposed to say, Elena? You have to get everyone hooked up to a life support unit out of here because when the power goes out in an hour and a half, the backup generator is going to fail and they're all going to die? Listen, we still have three floors full of people. This one and the two above us. They're trying to get us out as fast as they can but…"

Elena stopped her, remembering the listing of floors that was on the wall of the lobby.

"Wait a minute, two floors above us is the maternity ward." She said.

"Yeah, they can't just carry babies out. They've got to have a place to take them and the other hospitals are…" she was cut of when Elena turned to run off. "… flooded!"

* * *

"The hell do you mean, they haven't got the babies out?" Bobby snapped.

"They can't just carry them out of the hospital. Apparently there are regulations." Elena said, pacing angrily.

"God these people are stupid!" Dean said, slamming his foot into the wall.

"Screw regulations. I can't even imagine how many of those babies are firstborns. They are gonna die with the rest of us if we can't do something!" Bobby argued.

"Well what do we do? Carry them out ourselves?" Elena asked.

"No, but we can do something else. Something that might get us arrested if we get discovered." Dean said.

They all looked at him with a questioning look.

* * *

Elena shook her head as they slipped onto the maternity ward.

"We're going to get caught." She hissed as they slipped into an empty hospital room and began piling all of the sheets and stuff together on the bed.

The pillows and the blankets and the couch cushions went there too. Sam lifted a can and poured the gas over it.

"I'm pretty sure that, if there is a fire found on the floor, babies must go. Now hurry. We have fifteen minutes before the locusts." Dean urged them.

When it was all piled together and doused in gasoline, Dean flicked a match on it and they scurried out of the room to hide. A fire alarm went off almost instantly and several nurses ran in the direction of the room to see that it was on fire.

"Get the babies out! Now! We can't have them in this hospital!" one of them screeched before turning back to run to the newborn baby room.

"Can't risk smoke inhalation." Dean said triumphantly.

"Look at you, genius." Elena said with a grin, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

They stood to walk out and were stopped by a nurse.

"You have to help." She said desperately.

"Erm… what?" Sam asked.

"We need as many hands as possible to carry babies downstairs and outside to the waiting ambulances." She said, dragging them in the direction of the room.

They stared at each other with wide eyes, thankful that Sam left the can of gasoline back where they were hiding so that she wouldn't report them and have them arrested. They weren't the only non-medical people carrying babies. There were several other 'volunteers'. They all had a baby thrusted into their arms at the same time.

"Take the stairs. Take them slow. There is no need to rush." The head nurse instructed everyone.

"Yeah, tell that to the locusts." Dean said, staring down at the baby that he was holding awkwardly in his arms with a slight grimace.

They walked down the stairs slowly, one after another. Elena didn't waste any time before bonding with the alert baby in her arms.

"You are absolutely adorable. Yes you are." She murmured, grinning down at the little baby boy.

He gurgled and grinned at her as they walked into the lobby.

"Hey!" Dean said sharply, looking over at her baby with narrowed eyes as he stared up at Dean with wide eyes. "No flirting with my woman!"

The baby looked back at Elena and grinned again, much to her amusement.

* * *

When they reconvened in Bobby's room, they blocked off all of the vents and openings in the room once again.

"I swear to God, if a locust gets in here…" Elena said, shaking her head.

"We'll protect you." the three males assured her.

"You'd better or I'll kick all your asses." She threatened.

"That makes it seem much less chivalrous." Bobby informed her.

"I don't care." Elena said, shaking her head with wide eyes.

As they began hitting the windows again, Elena found herself wanting to throw up even worse than with the flies. The things were humongous. They turned on the television to try to distract Elena and found every station talking about the strange happenings in the hospitals. It turned out that it happened all over the world in the different time zones.

"You were right about the firstborn thing. Fifty-three people died in a hospital in London." Elena said sadly.

"We have got to get out of here." Dean said frustratingly.

Suddenly the locusts ceased pelting the windows.

"It's only been fifteen minutes." Elena said, confused.

Suddenly someone appeared in the room and they all sighed with relief.

"Thank God." Sam said.

"No, Castiel." The confused angel corrected him.

"I… I know who you are, Cas." Sam said, staring at him strangely.

"We have to get these people out of here." Elena said, walking to him.

"Yes, someone is working on it." he said.

"Someone?" Dean questioned.

He nodded, noticing their strange looks. Elena stared at him suspiciously before he reached out to take her hand.

"He wishes to speak to you." he said and she felt the angelic transportation.

She whirled around, surprised, to find that she was on the roof of the hospital.

"I believe you have some questions for me." a voice said behind her and she turned to see Gabriel.

Castiel was no longer there.

"I really wish that you guys would stop just whisking me places." She said, shaking her head.

"I know, it'll get so much easier when you learn how to do it yourself." He sighed.

Her head snapped up and she stared at him with wide eyes.

"Oh yeah, by the way, you've got some abilities that you don't know about." The archangel said with a cocky grin.

"Yeah well, can you make them stop? They're freaking me and everyone around me out. My eyes turned blue! And why didn't Castiel tell me about them?" she asked.

"Because… wait for it…" Gabriel paused for dramatic effect. "He doesn't know!"

"What? But… he's seen other guardians. He acted as though he knew all about them." Elena said, confused.

"Yeah, he does know all about guardians. But you, cupcake, are no ordinary guardian." The angel said, walking up to her with a grin as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"What does that mean?"

"You were already supernatural before we made you a guardian. I saw such potential in you… well I couldn't help it really. Why do you think I begged for your continued existence? So that I would get the chance to simper at Michael's feet?" He said, shrugging.

"What do you mean, Gabriel?" Elena demanded.

"You, my darling, have angel DNA in you." he said, smirking at her.

Elena stared at Gabriel with wide eyes.

"What… I… what does that mean?" she asked hesitantly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he said, winking at her.

She glared at him, unamused by his lack of willingness to answer her questions when she actually asked them.

"Oh, by the way. I heard you whining on and on about those people who were stuck in the hospital. It just would not stop and… well I was get annoyed. So you'll be happy to know that they are all happily sitting outside the hospital with no idea how they got there and the day is saved." He said, smirking at her.

"Everyone except your boys, that is. They won't move a muscle until they know that you're safe. So…"

"Don't you dare! I demand an…" she watched as he snapped his fingers. "… explanation!"

Her sentence finished as she appeared in Bobby's hospital room once again.

She whirled around, seeing Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Castiel standing there.

"Son of a bitch!" she snapped, huffing as she glared at Castiel.

"Where the hell did you go?" Dean asked.

"To the roof!" she said, pointing up.

Suddenly the lights all went off and they looked around with wide eyes.

"Guys… it's not time for the next plague yet." Elena said, thankful that the sun was streaming through the window so that they could see each other.

"Whatever is controlling this knows that we've gotten everyone out of the building. It knows that we are the only ones in harms way yet it is still continuing with its plan. That means that you were the original target." Cas said, turning to them.

"Something is after us?" Sam asked.

"Is that really much of a surprise?" Elena said.

The other three shrugged as Castiel walked forward. He took turns touching them and transporting them away individually. Elena was last, staring at him with wide eyes.

"What took you so long, Cas?" she asked worriedly.

"There were barriers." He said simply, looking up at her with his big blue eyes before taking her hand.

She looked up at him and suddenly his eyes widened.

"What's wrong?" she asked, wondering why they hadn't left the building yet.

He let out a choking noise and she put her hands on his face as it turned red.

"Cas?" she said, panicking.

"Elena, run." He gasped.

"No, what's wrong?" she demanded.

"He's coming. Run." He urged her, falling to his knees.

Elena dropped with him, alarmed when blood trickled out of his mouth. That was when she sensed someone else in the room.

"Oh it won't be necessary to run. You can't get away." The new addition said as she turned to look at him.

"Did you do this to the hospital?" she asked.

"Do you know how hard you are to get alone, Elena? It took getting a hospital evacuated. Pity." Zachariah informed her.

"People died! You didn't just do it to this hospital! There were hospitals everywhere!" she shouted.

"No, we did just do it to this hospital. It was simple enough to fake a newscast and all of these Internet stories that we knew you'd find." He shrugged.

"What do you want?" she said through gritted once it sunk in that they wanted to speak to her that badly.

"Just to give you an offer." The angel shrugged.

She stared at him.

"I'm not interested in anything you have to give me." she said, clenching her hand into fists as Castiel writhed in pain at her feet.

"Oh I don't think that's true." He said, smirking at her.

"Stop torturing him." she demanded, pointing at Cas.

"I don't think I'll do that, actually. He's pissed me off one too many times." Zachariah said.

"If you kill him, Daddy will just put him right back here." Elena reminded him.

"I know that. It's annoying, but I know it. So about that offer." He said, stepping forward.

"I already told you…" she began.

"Wait until you hear my terms." He interrupted her, holding up a hand.

She glared at him.

"Dean will be Michael's vessel. We want him to be Michael's vessel and what we want to happen almost always happens. Wait… what am I saying? What we want always happens." He said, chuckling lightly.

"Well you aren't getting what you want this time." Elena snapped.

"We'll see about that." Zachariah said.

"There is absolutely nothing that you can offer him or me that will change the fact that he will not be Michael's vessel."

"How about your continued ability to remain together?" he asked.

Elena squinted at him.

"You have ninety days, Elena. That's three months… to convince him to say yes to Michael." Zachariah said, entirely serious.

She stared at him, her blood running cold as his words echoed in her mind.

"And if I don't?" she said, her voice holding strength that she didn't know she had.

"Straight to the point. If, at the end of those ninety days, he still says no… well I'm afraid that those few minutes of hell that I showed you when I killed you in the storage room will be nothing compared to what I put you through when you fail me."

Elena mustered up all of the strength she had and glared at him.

"You're a bastard, you know that?" she snapped.

"Oh I've been told. Have a nice day, now." Zachariah said, grinning at her before disappearing.

She stared at the spot where he was standing before she turned to Cas to help him up. Her hand quickly went to his mouth to wipe the blood from it.

"Elena." he caught her hand, staring at her with his wide, soulful eyes.

She looked back, trying to keep her emotions down.

"You can't tell them." She whispered.

He looked at her with a hesitant look as though he was unwilling to comply with that request.

"Please, Cas." She murmured pleadingly.

"Elena… they will want to know." He said.

"I don't care. They can't know this. Dean will do something reckless and Sam will go along with it. Even Bobby will try to do something. They don't think before they act. They can't defeat Zachariah. Not right now. Please, you cannot tell them."

He stared at her for a moment before he sighed and pulled away from her helping hands.

"There will be consequences." Cas warned her.

"There always are." She said softly.

* * *

**Okay so we all know that I'm not too proud of this chapter. I actually hate it. But it's necessary and I really didn't want to think too hard about how to replace it with something else. So this is what we have.**

**Next: When Bobby gets a call from a friend, he sends Elena and the Winchesters to Colorado to help out some other hunters.**


	3. We Are Forsaken This Time

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks so much to Nyssandria, Dean Winchester Rocks, KwC1994, unitfive, and the guest for reviewing!**

**CHAPTER TITLE: Forsaken – Within Temptation**

**A few things:**

**1. This chapter is completely redone but it's the same basic outline. There will be a few changes.**

**2. Ellen and Jo show up again as well as Rufus.**

**3. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**4. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

Elena and Sam peeked into the room, watching as the nurses settled Bobby back in his wheelchair. The older hunter was back to not talking.

"We have to cheer him up." she said, looking at him sadly.

"Maybe I'll give him a backrub." Dean offered as he walked up to them.

Elena fought back a smile as Sam shook his head.

"Dean." The younger brother sighed.

"Well, what, then?" Dean demanded.

"Look..." Sam paused, glancing at Bobby. "… we might have to wrap our heads around the idea that Bobby might not just bounce back this time."

Elena glanced at Dean and saw him holding a large envelope.

"What's in the envelope?" she asked.

"Went to radiology." He said, opening it and pulling out the contents. "Got some glamour shots."

Elena and Sam peered at it to see that it was an X-ray of his ribs. There was strange writing on them.

"Let's just say the doctors are baffled." Dean said.

"Holy crap." Sam breathed.

Both him and Elena looked at the writing that was etched on his ribs.

"It has to be Enochian." Elena said.

"Yeah, well, Cas carved you two one, too."

"And Bobby." She reminded him, pulling out her phone as it rang.

The only reason Zachariah was able to find them was because Bobby didn't have the writing on his ribs.

"Hello?" Elena said, confused at the number she didn't recognize.

"Elena." a familiar voice said.

"Cas?" she said, her brow furrowing.

"Speak of the devil." Dean said.

"Where are you?" Castiel asked.

"We're back at the hospital. Why?" Elena answered. "What are you… Cas?"

The dial tone sounded and she hung up, glancing up at Sam and Dean with a clueless look. They all looked around in time to see a doctor and nurse rushing down the hallway. Castiel appeared behind them, walking towards them.

"Cell phone, Cas? Really?" Dean asked. "Since when do angels need to reach out and touch someone?"

"You're hidden from angels now… all angels." Castiel answered, looking between them. "I won't be able to simply…"

"Enough foreplay." Bobby growled.

They all looked over at him where he was staring out of the window.

"Get over here and lay your damn hands on."

No one moved and Bobby looked over his shoulder.

"Get healing. Now."

"I can't." Castiel sighed.

Bobby turned his chair to face the angel, his jaw clenching.

"Say again?"

Castiel walked into the room and they followed him.

"I'm cut off from heaven and much of heaven's power. Certain things I can do. Certain things I can't."

"You're telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap the rest of my life?" Bobby demanded.

"I'm sorry. I would suggest that Elena try as her abilities are far more advanced than I was aware…"

Elena averted her eyes as they all looked at her.

"… but I fear that even she may not be powerful enough."

"Shove it up your ass." Bobby growled, turning back to the window.

"At least he's talking now." Dean muttered.

"I heard that." the older hunter grumbled as Dean smirked and Sam rolled his eyes.

Castiel turned back to the other three, walking to them.

"I don't have much time. We need to talk." He said, looking serious.

"Okay." Dean nodded.

"Your plan to kill Lucifer." Castiel said.

"Yeah. You want to help?"

"No. It's foolish. It can't be done." The angel said simply.

They all stared at him.

"Thanks for the support, Cas." Elena said, unable to hide her amusement at his words.

He didn't acknowledge her.

"But I believe I have the solution. There is someone besides Michael strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the apocalypse."

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

"The one who resurrected me and put you on that airplane. The one who began everything." He said, looking exhilarated.

"God?" Elena questioned.

Dean and Sam looked skeptical as he nodded.

"I'm going to find God."

They exchanged wary looks as Dean closed the door to the room. Even Bobby was facing them again with a doubtful look.

"God?" Dean asked.

"Yes." Castiel nodded.

"God."

"Yes!" the angel said, exasperated. "He isn't in heaven. He has to be somewhere."

"Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla." Dean said, rolling his eyes as he rubbed his chin.

Castiel looked confused before shaking his head.

"No, he's not on any flatbread." He said.

Elena and Sam laughed but Dean looked at him with disbelief.

"Listen, Chuckles, even if there is a God, he is either dead… and that's the generous theory…"

"He is out there, Dean." Castiel argued.

"… or he's up and kicking and doesn't give a rat's ass about any of us."

Elena and Castiel both glared at him, one for being an ass and one for insulting his father.

"I mean, look around you, man. The world is in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he's off somewhere drinking booze out of a coconut. All right?"

"Enough." Castiel snapped. "This is not a theological issue. It's strategic. With God's help, we can win."

"It's a pipe dream, Cas." Dean argued.

"Dean." Elena hissed, reaching out to take his hand so that he would shut up.

Castiel advanced on him, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"I killed two angels this week. My brothers. I'm hunted. I rebelled. And I did it, all of it, for you, and you failed. You and your brother destroyed the world…"

Sam looked down at his feet as Elena glanced over at him.

"… and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep your opinions to yourself."

They all remained silent as his anger dissipated and he stepped back again.

"You didn't drop in just to tear us a new hole. What is it you want?" Bobby questioned.

"I did come for something. An amulet." The angel said, taking a deep breath.

"An amulet? What kind?" Elena asked, wanting to help him after all that he'd done for them.

"Very rare. Very powerful." He answered, looking at her. "It burns hot in God's presence. It'll help me find him."

"A God EMF?" Sam questioned.

Castiel nodded.

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about. I got nothing like that." Bobby shrugged.

"I know. You don't." Castiel agreed, looking at Dean.

They all watched as his eyes dropped to the golden amulet on the end of the leather cord around Dean's neck.

"What, this?" Dean said, gesturing to it.

Castiel's eyes flickered up to his.

"May I borrow it?"

"No." Dean growled.

"Dean. Give it to me." Castiel said, serious.

Dean remained silent for a moment. Then he slid his hand out of Elena's and lifted the amulet over his head.

"All right, I guess." He sighed.

When Castiel reached for it, he pulled it back hesitantly.

"Don't lose it."

Castiel nodded, taking it from his hand and dropping it into his pocket.

"Great. Now I feel naked." Dean grumbled as Elena rubbed his arm soothingly.

"I'll be in touch."

They all nodded and he disappeared.

"When you find God, tell him to send legs!" Bobby shouted.

* * *

Elena slid onto the bed behind once she walked out of the bathroom in her comfortable clothing. Dean pulled his shirt over his head at her urging. She pushed up onto her knees and began massaging his back slowly. He winced and let out sharp breaths at the feeling of his sore muscles being kneaded.

"You're good at that." Dean sighed.

"I try." She said, smiling slightly.

Dean dropped his head as she worked out the knots in his shoulders.

"Do you want to go visit Mystic Falls? We can make sure everyone is all right." Dean offered.

Elena thought about it for a moment.

"Let's make sure there aren't any jobs for us. I'm sure that the supernatural world is going crazy right now with the power spike when Lucifer rose. If we have no pressing concerns, I would love to." She said, grateful for Dean thinking of it.

"Just let me know when you want to go. I don't want to keep you from seeing your family." he said.

Elena smiled, leaning forward to place a soft kiss on the bare skin of his back. Dean smiled at the feeling as she wrapped her arms around his torso and laid her cheek against his shoulder blade. Elena's eyes found Sam, who was sitting at the table looking through his computer with headphones in his ears.

"What about your family?" she murmured.

Dean took a deep breath, glancing at him as well.

"I have no idea." He said honestly.

* * *

Elena jerked awake to the sound of ringing. She sat up, rubbing her eyes as she reached over Dean and grabbed his phone.

"Hello?" she mumbled quietly, sitting up.

"I just got a call from another hunter, Rufus. River Pass, Colorado. They need your help." Bobby said.

Elena sighed, nodding as she slowly woke up.

"We're on our way."

* * *

Dean approached the river, slowing down the Impala. They all exchanged uncertain looks before climbing out to approach the edge. The bridge was collapsed into the river. Dean kicked a rock over the edge with a sigh.

"This is the only road in or out." he said.

Sam pulled his cell phone out and held it up.

"No signal." He said, glancing at them. "Looks like we're hiking in."

"And the hits just keep on coming." Dean sighed.

They walked back to the Impala to gather weapons. Dean and Sam loaded up duffle bags of everything they would need. Elena strapped the demon-killing knife around her waist and put a gun in the back of her jeans before picking up a shotgun to load it full of salt rounds. Dean looked at her with a strange look in his eyes.

"What?" Elena asked, closing the barrel of the shotgun.

He shook his head, hoisting the bag over his shoulder before picking up his own shotgun.

"You're just…" Dean sighed as they walked towards the river. "I don't know."

Elena frowned at him but didn't have time to dwell on it as they began climbing down to make their way across the river.

As they walked into town, they heard distant music playing. They drew closer and realized that it was 'Spirit in the Sky' by Norman Greenbaum. They turned onto a street as they scanned the area. A car was flipped over in front of them and the music was coming from its stereo. As they approached it, they all prepared as they bent down. It was empty. Dean nodded at them and they moved on, walking towards the town center. They passed a classic red Mustang and all three paused. Sam and Elena moved on when they saw that it was empty but Dean remained behind and whistled at the nice car for a moment.

As they walked towards another abandoned car, a gun cocked behind them. They all whirled around with wide eyes, guns at the ready. Elena immediately recognized the woman standing in front of them.

"Ellen?" Sam said, shocked.

"Hello, boys. Elena." She nodded.

Dean glanced back at them as she lowered her gun and walked closer.

"Ellen, what the heck's going on here?"

Before she said another word, Ellen splashed holy water in Dean's face and held up her gun. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting her see that the water didn't affect him.

"We're us." He assured her.

Ellen nodded once and the boys relaxed. Elena slowly pulled the dagger out and Ellen's eyes flashed to it.

"Elena?" Sam said, his eyes wide.

"No, let her." the other female hunter said, her eyes narrowing at the brothers. "You boys shouldn't lower your guard so fast."

Elena reached out and sliced the blade across her palm, satisfied when nothing happened.

"Good girl." Ellen murmured, nodding at her.

She turned to walk to a church nearby as they followed her. When she opened the door, they saw a devil's trap painted on the floor. After they all walked over it with no problem, Ellen whirled around.

"Real glad to see you boys." She sighed.

Ellen leaned forward to hug Dean and then pulled back, punching him across the face. Elena smirked as he stared at her in shock.

"The can of whoopass I ought to open on you." she snapped.

"Ow!" Dean complained.

"You can't pick up a phone? What are you, allergic to giving me peace of mind? I got to find out that you're alive from Bobby?"

"Sorry, Ellen." He said, sounding ashamed.

"Yeah, you better be. You better put me on speed dial, kid." She said, pointing at him.

"Yes, ma'am." Dean sighed.

Ellen leaned forward to hug Sam as well before patting Elena's arm. They followed her down the stairs as she led them.

"What's going on, Ellen?" Dean asked.

"More than I can handle alone." She answered, shaking her head.

"How many demons are there?" Sam questioned.

"Pretty much the whole town, minus the dead people and these guys."

Ellen stopped at the closed door and turned back to look at them.

"So, this is it, right? End times?"

They all exchanged looks before glancing back at her.

"It's got to be." Ellen said.

"Seems like it." Sam nodded.

Ellen sighed before turning to knock on the door.

"It's me."

The person on the other side opened a peephole. They peered through before opening the door. As they stepped into the room, they saw a crowd of terrified looking people, including a pastor, a pregnant woman, and several other people who were definitely not hunters.

"This is Sam, Dean, and Elena. They're hunters. Here to help." Ellen announced.

"You guys hip to this whole demon thing?" the door guard asked.

"Yeah. Are you?" Dean said, looking him up and down.

A man with a shining ring on his finger sat up straighter, staring at them.

"My wife's eyes turned black. She came at me with a brick. Kind of makes you embrace the paranormal." He said, looking at his ring as if he was contemplating it.

They turned to Ellen as they walked away from the crowd of people.

"All right, catch us up." Dean said.

"I doubt I know much more than you. Rufus called. Said he was in town investigating omens. All of a sudden, the whole town was possessed. Me and Jo were nearby…"

"You're hunting with Jo?" Dean cut her off.

"Yeah, for a while now. We got here, and the place… well, the place was like you see it. Couldn't find Rufus, then me and Jo got separated. I was out looking when I found you." Ellen sighed, rubbing her forehead.

"Don't worry, we'll find her." Elena assured her.

Dean and Sam glanced around.

"Either way, these people cannot just sit here." Sam said. "We got to get them out now."

The pregnant woman sat up with wide eyes.

"No, it's not that easy." Ellen said, shaking her head. "I've been trying. We already made a run for it once."

"What happened?" Elena asked.

"There used to be twenty of us." She answered.

They all did a quick count. There were ten people, minus the four hunters.

"Well, there's four of us now…" Dean began.

"You don't know what it's like out there." Ellen cut him off. "Demons are everywhere. We won't be able to cover everybody."

The people watching them talk looked nervous.

"What if we get everyone guns?" Sam suggested.

"What, are you gonna arm up baby bump over here?" Dean questioned.

"More salt we can fire at once, more demons we can keep away." He said.

Dean glanced around the room before sighing.

"There's a sporting goods store we passed on Main on the way in. I bet they got guns." Elena suggested.

Dean and Sam nodded at once, dropping their bags.

"All right. You stay. We'll go." Dean said.

"What?" she said, stepping forward. "No."

He looked down at her.

"You can start teaching these people. We're not arming them up unless they're going to shoot at the right targets. You can do that while we're gone." Dean said.

"But what about you? There are demons everywhere." Elena argued.

"And we can handle them. We'll be back before you know it. These people will react better to you being here anyway. You look more approachable than two men with guns."

Elena stared at him with a raised eyebrow, holding up the shotgun in her hand. Dean let out a chuckle, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"Please?"

She sighed and nodded unwillingly, pressing the demon-killing knife into Sam's hand.

"What about…" Ellen began, stepping forward.

"If Jo and Rufus are out there, we'll bring them back." Dean assured her.

They walked towards the door and Austin, the door guard, opened it for them. When they reached the top of the stairs, Dean stopped.

"Hold on." he said, holding up a hand.

The brothers stopped and Sam looked at him questioningly.

"Why don't I just go?" Dean said, looking at him.

"What? Alone?" he scoffed.

"Well, yeah. It's gonna go a lot faster if you stay and help, okay?" Dean tried to convince him.

Sam stared at him with disbelief.

"While you go get guns and salt and look for Jo and Rufus? That's stupid." He said.

"I can handle it." Dean said.

Sam paused, realizing exactly what was going on.

"You don't want me going out there. Around demons."

"I didn't say that." Dean said defensively.

"Fine, then let's go." Sam said, turning to head up the street.

Dean sighed, following him. When they got on the street, Dean glanced around.

"I'll get the salt. You get the guns." Sam suggested.

"We'll go together." He said.

Sam shook his head, turning to face him.

"Dean, it's right there. Can we at least do this like professionals?" he said, pointing at the store.

Dean watched as he walked off, turning to head off towards the sporting goods store.

* * *

Elena and Ellen worked with the people making salt rounds while they waited on the others to return.

"You're a hunter?" Austin asked.

She nodded once, pouring salt out.

"You don't look like a hunter."

Elena looked up at him, raising her eyebrow.

"And what do I look like?" she asked.

"A sorority girl." he shrugged.

She stared at him for a moment before pulling the handgun out of her waistband, setting it on the table between them. Austin stared down at it for a moment before smiling slightly.

"I've been wrong before." he shrugged.

"And I'm sure that you will be again." Elena said, going back to what she was doing.

Roger, the man with the ring, leaned towards Elena.

"Do these kill the demons?" he asked, holding up the salt round in his hand.

She shook her head, capping one of the rounds.

"It slows 'em down." Elena answered.

"What kills them?" he asked.

She looked up at him.

"Hunters."

* * *

Sam quickly gathered his supplies. When he was bent over grabbing cans of rock salt, he heard the door chime. Two demons were walking in, one carrying a baseball bat and the other a backpack. Sam ducked and looked up into the mirror to watch them. His shotgun was sitting on a row of cans. He reached for it slowly and the closest demon's eyes were drawn to him. He launched at him, slamming into a display as his hands wrapped around Sam's throat.

"Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus…" Sam began as he clubbed the demon over the head with the can of rock salt.

He knocked it out of his hand and continued choking him. Sam drew Ruby's knife and stabbed it into the demon's chest, pulling it out as he collapsed to the ground. Before he could look around, the other demon jumped him from behind. Sam didn't hesitate, stabbing the knife into his throat. As the demon slid off of his back, he stared at the blood on the floor. When his eyes caught the scarlet liquid on the blade, he lifted it and ran his thumb along the blade. When the door chimed, Sam ducked again and looked up into the mirror.

"Sammy?" Dean said, setting down the bags in his hands.

Sam sighed in relief and stood as Dean walked around the corner of the aisle. When he saw the demons dead on the ground and the blood dripping off of the knife, he swallowed hard and looked up at Sam hesitantly.

* * *

Elena stood at the other table watching as Ellen and Sam taught the group how to load the shotguns that Dean collected. She was making more rounds as Austin crossed over to her and Dean, who was assembling the guns.

Dean set a rifle on the table in front of Austin, taking him by surprise.

"You know your way around a gun at all?"

Austin reached out and they watched as he expertly disassembled it. Dean nodded, looking impressed.

"Where'd you serve?"

"Fallujah. Two tours. Got back a little over a year ago." Austin answered, reassembling it. "Takes one to know one. Where'd you serve?"

"Hell." Dean answered, turning to Elena to hand her a gun to assemble.

Austin snorted, watching them.

"No, seriously."

"Seriously. Hell." he said, looking up at the soldier.

Elena noticed Sam sitting by himself in the corner. She nudged Dean and nodded at him. He sighed and walked off, approaching his brother.

"Hey." Dean said, sitting beside him. "What's wrong?"

Sam looked down at his hands.

"It's just... at the store. Those demons were possessing teenagers." He sighed. "I mean, I had to slit some kid's throat."

"Come on, Sam, you had to." Dean said, shaking his head.

"I know. I just... it used to be like..." he hesitated. "I just wish I could save people like I used to."

Dean narrowed his eyes at him.

"What, you mean when you were all hopped up on demon blood?"

Sam looked up at him, looking sad.

"I didn't say that."

* * *

"He was serious? Hell?" Austin asked, his eyes wide.

"Where do you think demons come from?" Elena said.

He glanced back at Dean where he was talking to Sam before watching as she assembled the guns in front of her.

"What about you?" Austin questioned.

"My father was a hunter. My uncle was a hunter. My history teacher is a hunter. Sam and Dean taught me everything that they didn't." Elena answered, placing the shotgun on the table.

Austin picked it up, looking it over.

"Still, most girls couldn't tell the difference between a shotgun and a rifle."

Elena rolled her eyes, pulling it out of his hands.

"Girls aren't as clueless as men would like to think. And if this is you flirting with me, I should warn you that I don't flirt on cases."

Austin grinned at her, moving in closer.

"Well, maybe you should start to loosen up on… cases. It can't hurt, right?"

Elena lifted her head, turning to look at him as Dean approached them, looking angry.

"You know what, you're right." she nodded as Dean looked between them suspiciously.

She moved closer to Austin for a moment before sliding past him to Dean. The soldier watched with disbelief as she approached him.

"I've been told to start flirting on cases." Elena said, sliding her hand into his.

"Oh really?" Dean asked, a slight smile lifting the corners of his lips.

"Mm-hm." She nodded, leaning in.

Their lips barely met before they heard Ellen say something to Sam.

"I'll be back."

They turned to see her standing at the door.

"Where you going?" Dean asked, walking towards her and pulling Elena with him.

"I can't sit here on my ass. My daughter's out there somewhere. I'm not back in half an hour, go. Get these people out of here."

Sam stood up as she walked towards the door.

"No, wait. I'll go with you."

"Whoa, hold on." Dean protested. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Elena walked out with them as they stood outside of the room.

"You're gonna go out there again?" he demanded.

"Well, crap doesn't hit the fan with coffee breaks." Sam shrugged.

"I'll go." Dean said.

"It's fine. Just stay here, get 'em ready. I'll cover Ellen." He said, turning away.

Dean caught his arm, stepping away from Elena.

"Why's it got to be you?" he demanded.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot. You think I'll take one look at a demon and suddenly fall off the wagon, as if, after everything, I haven't learned my lesson." Sam scoffed.

"Well, have you?" Dean snapped.

Sam slammed him into the wall loudly.

"If you actually think I…"

Elena shot forward and grabbed Sam. When she pushed him against the wall, she held her arm across his chest in an unbreakable grip. The door opened and Ellen looked at them with shock. Elena drew away from Sam, looking away from him as he stared at her with surprise. Sam looked like he would say something else but he shook his head, walking past them and back into the room. Elena glanced up at Dean and he took a deep breath, drawing her in and pressing his head into her hair. She held him close, allowing him to calm down.

* * *

"So where'd you see her last?" Sam asked as they walked through a residential area.

"Up ahead." Ellen nodded. "So what's up with you and Dean?"

Sam glanced over at her before looking away without answering.

"It was hard not to notice, how different things are between you guys these days." She said. "Lot of bad road there, huh? What happened? Some girl come between you or something? Elena?"

"No." Sam finally said, shaking his head. "Elena's like a sister to me. It's just… stresses of the job. You know how it is."

Ellen nodded, glancing around their vicinity.

"Kind of surprised, you and Jo hunting. Weren't you always saying she couldn't hack the life?" he asked.

"She can't. But if she's gonna do it anyway…" Ellen shrugged.

"You want to keep an eye on her." he realized.

Before either of them could say another word, he saw smoke rising up from behind some trees.

"Hey." Sam said, pointing.

"Is that a chimney going?" Ellen said, squinting at the column of black smoke.

"Looks like it. Come on." Sam said.

They approached the house slowly, hiding behind another building to peek in. They both spotted a black-eyed demon inside.

"Guess we found base camp." Ellen said.

"Demons don't get cold. Makes you wonder what they're burning."

Sam started around the corner but Ellen was suddenly grabbed from behind. Sam whirled around and slammed his gun into a demon's face. Another pinned Ellen against the wall with a shotgun.

"Don't move, you evil skank!" Jo growled.

The demon that Sam was fighting grabbed his gun and began whacking him with it. Sam slammed him into the wall. The other demon let go of Ellen, running to help his friend. Jo's eyes turned black as she glared at Ellen.

"Don't you hurt her, don't you…"

"Give me my mom back, you black-eyed bitch!" Jo growled.

Ellen shoved Jo off and slammed her with the butt of her shotgun.

"Ellen! Run!" Sam shouted, cocking his own gun.

Ellen took off but he was suddenly hit from behind. Sam fell to the ground and turned over, recognizing Rufus as his eyes flickered to black.

"Got you now, you bastard." Rufus growled.

* * *

Sam yanked at the ropes as he woke up in a chair in front of the fireplace, looked around wildly before seeing Rufus and Jo there. They both had black eyes. Jo was holding a gallon of water.

"Uh-uh. No way you're getting out of those. Did you up myself." Rufus said, shaking his head. "You're stuck right where I want you, you evil son of a bitch."

The hunter backhanded him before Jo splashed him with the water. They looked at him with confused looks before the older hunter moved forward. He grabbed the back of Sam's neck, forcing his head back.

"No, wait, wait, wait."

Jo put down the jug and walked around, holding his head as Rufus bent down to pick up salt.

"Just, just wait."

Rufus poured salt into his mouth before he could say another word.

"Exorcisamus te, exorcisamus te, omnis satanica…"

"Stop!" Sam choked out.

"… omnis immundum…"

"Please!"

* * *

Dean paced as Elena sat beside the pregnant woman, who was lying on a cot. Austin hovered near them, watching.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He layeth me down in green pastures, and he raiseth me up again. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." The pastor was muttering, his head bent down.

Someone pounded on the door and everyone startled. Dean ran forward, opening the peephole. When he opened it, Ellen came running in alone. Elena jumped up, the feeling of dread within her confirmed.

"Where's Sam?" Dean demanded.

Ellen shook her head and grabbed a bottle of holy water to drink out of it.

"They took him? Demons took him?" the pregnant woman gasped, sitting up. "Oh my god. What if they're in here? The demons?"

Elena helped her lie back down along with her husband.

"Could they get in?" the pastor asked.

"No." Dean said, shaking his head.

He grabbed his shotgun and headed for the door. Elena launched forward, slipping the knife into the sheath on her hip.

"Everybody sit tight. I got to…"

Dean stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked back at the people who were depending on him. He grimaced and pulled his hand away.

"I'll go." Elena said, not giving him a chance to argue as she took the shotgun out of his hands.

She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

"They're at the house with the smoking chimney!" Ellen called after her.

Behind her, she heard Dean talking to them.

"Okay, we need to get a plan together. Tell me everything."

* * *

Elena approached the house slowly, peering into the window. Jo was there with an older man that must have been Rufus. They had Sam tied up underneath a devil's trap. Rufus was pouring salt into his mouth as Jo held his head still. Suddenly, a stab of anger and protectiveness rushed through her. Elena lifted her hand, walking towards the window. A demon ran at her, shouting out. Elena threw her hand out, sending him flying backwards without a second thought. Jo and Rufus turned, staring at her with shock. She saw her reflection in the window and suddenly her eyes flashed an icy blue color. In the next moment, glass shattered, the force sending Jo and Rufus stumbling backwards as they shielded themselves from the flying shards.

* * *

Dean and Ellen sat at the table with the others practicing around them.

"Dean, one of them's in Jo. We got to get it out without hurting her." she sighed.

Dean nodded, glancing up at her when she snorted.

"It called me a bitch."

"Bruise a little easy, don't you think?" he said.

"No, that's not what I meant." Ellen said, shaking her head seriously. "It called me a black-eyed bitch."

Dean considered her words, noticing something strange about them.

"What kind of demons are these? Holy water and salt roll right off." Ellen said, looking at him with wide eyes. "My daughter may be an idiot, but she's not stupid. She wears an anti-possession charm. It's all kind of weird, right?"

"The whole thing's off." he agreed.

Ellen leaned forward, staring at him.

"What's your instinct?"

"My instinct? My instinct is to call Bobby and ask for help. Or Sam or Elena."

"Well, tough. All you got's me, and all I got's you. So let's figure it out." she said.

Dean glanced at her before nodding.

"All right."

Ellen smiled and nodded as well.

"Do you know why Rufus came to town? Was there a specific omen?" Dean asked.

"He said something about water. That's all I know." She shrugged.

He turned to the pastor.

"Padré, you know what she's talking about… the water?"

"The river. Ran polluted all of a sudden." He answered.

"When?" Dean asked.

"Last Wednesday. And the demon thing started up the next day." Austin said.

"Anything else? Anything." He questioned.

"Maybe, but it's pretty random." The soldier nodded.

"Good. Random's good." Dean said.

"Shooting star… does that count?"

Dean and Ellen exchanged a look.

"Real big. Same night. Wednesday."

"That definitely counts." Dean said, standing up.

He crossed to the bookshelf and pulled out a Bible.

"So, uh, you think that all this comes from outer space?" Austin asked as he sat back down.

"This isn't X-Files, pal." Dean said, flipping through the pages.

He searched until he found the passage he wanted and read it aloud.

"And there fell a great star from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell upon the river, and the name of the star was Wormwood. And many men died."

"Revelation eight ten." The pastor said, staring at him. "Are you saying that this is about the apocalypse?"

"You could say. And these specific omens, they're prelude to what?" Dean asked, looking up at him.

"The Four Horsemen." He answered.

Dean considered his words for a moment.

"And which one rides the red horse?"

"War." The pastor said, looking slightly afraid.

"That cherry Mustang parked on Main." Dean said, looking at Ellen.

She nodded.

"You can't think that a car…"

"It's the way I'd roll." Dean said, interrupted the pastor. "I mean, think about it. It all makes sense. If War is a dude and he's here, maybe he's messing with our heads."

"Turning us on each other." Ellen agreed.

"You said Jo called you a black-eyed bitch. They think we're demons, we think they're demons. What if there are no demons at all and we're all just killing each other?"

"Wait, just back up. It's the apocalypse?" the pastor asked, shocked.

"Sorry, Padré."

* * *

"Stop!" Elena shouted, holding up the knife as Rufus and Jo advanced on her.

They both stopped, looking shocked.

"Who the hell are you?" Rufus demanded.

"That's Elena." Jo said, tilting her head to the side.

Rufus looked at her suspiciously.

"Another one of them. She's after him." he said, cocking his head to Sam who was staring into the corner with wide eyes.

"No, did you hear the ringing noise? Demons don't do that." Jo hissed, turning to face him.

Elena turned to look at what Sam was staring at and saw Roger standing there, his finger stroking his ring.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam demanded hoarsely.

They all turned to face him, stumbling away from him.

Roger took off his glasses.

"What are you?" Elena demanded.

"You caught me. Popped in to watch. I can hustle like that." he said, smirking.

"So, the Roger everyone around here knows, the real Roger?" Elena asked, sawing at Sam's ropes.

Neither Jo nor Rufus moved to stop her.

"Buried in a ditch." The creature shrugged.

Sam rolled his eyes and nodded, rubbing his wrists as he stood.

"So who are you?" Jo asked.

They looked over to see that their black eyes had cleared. Elena stared at them in shock, suddenly sensing that they weren't demons.

"Here's a hint. I was in Germany. Then in Germany. Then in the Middle East. I was in Darfur when my beeper went off. I'm waiting to hook up with my siblings. I've got three. We're going to have so much fun together." He said, grinning.

They all realized who he was, their eyes widening.

"I know who you are. There aren't any demons in town, are there?" Sam said, nodding.

"Nope. Just frightened people ripping each other's throats out." War said. "I really haven't had to do too much. Take out a bridge here, lay in a little hallucination there, sit back, pop some corn, watch the show. Frankly, you're really vicious little animals."

"No. You're doing this." Elena snapped, pointing at him.

He scoffed, cleaning off his glasses.

"Please. Last week, this was Mayberry." He said. "Now these people are stabbing each other's children."

"Cause you made them see demons!" Sam shouted.

"Honestly, people don't need a reason to kill each other. I mean, you seen the Irish? They're all… Irish." War shrugged.

Jo and Rufus moved closer to Elena and Sam.

"You think I'm a monster. I'm jello shots at a party. I just remove inhibitions." He said.

"I'm gonna kill you myself." Sam threatened.

The horseman let out a laugh.

"Oh, that's adorable, considering you're my poster boy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demanded.

War's eyes flickered to Elena before looking back at him.

"You can't stop thinking about it, ever since you saw it dripping off the blade of that knife."

Elena looked at Sam with wide eyes.

"You're wrong." He snapped.

"Save your protests for your brother. I can see inside your head. And man, it is one-track city in there. Blood, blood, blood. Lust for power. Same as always." War chuckled, shaking his head. "You want to be strong again. But not just strong. Stronger than everybody. Good intentions… quick slide to hell, buddy boy. You feel bad now? Wait till you're thigh deep in warm corpses. Because, my friend, I'm just getting started."

He pushed his glasses back onto his face, grinning as he looked up.

"My ears are ringing." He said, winking at them before disappearing.

* * *

"So now you're saying that there are no demons and war is a guy." Austin demanded.

"You believed crazy before." Dean shrugged.

Suddenly someone hammered on the door.

"Open up! It's Roger!"

Austin checked the peephole before letting him in. He was breathing hard, hunched over as if he'd been running.

"I saw them, the demons. They know we're trying to leave." Roger said, looking panicked. "They said they're gonna pick us off one by one."

"Wait wait wait. What?" Dean said, frowning at him.

"I thought you said there were no demons." Austin said, turning to glare at them.

"There's not. Where did you go?" Dean demanded.

Roger shrugged.

"I thought someone should go out and see what's going on!"

"Where did you see the demons and what did they say exactly?" Dean asked, starting forward.

"We just sit here, we're going to be dead." Austin snapped.

"No, we're not!" Dean argued.

"They're gonna kill us unless we kill them first." Roger said desperately.

Dean shook his head, holding his hands out.

"Hold on. Hold on."

"No, man, we got people to protect. All right, the able-bodied go hunt some demons."

Austin picked up a shotgun and handed it to the pregnant woman's husband.

"Whoa whoa whoa. Slow your roll. This is not a demon thing." Dean argued.

They didn't see Roger twist his wring.

"Look at their eyes! They're demons!" he shouted, pointing at them as their eyes turned black.

The pregnant woman gasped as the pastor raised a shotgun.

"Go, go!" Dean shouted, shoving Ellen towards the door.

Austin blasted his shotgun and hit the door as they ran through it.

"Move!" Dean yelled as they ran up the stairs.

War watched with triumph. Once they were gone, Austin turned and began loading up his shotgun with real bullets.

"Those are real." Roger said.

"Those two could have been demons the entire time. All this salt and holy water talk… as far as I'm concerned, it's all crap." He said, glaring down at the shotgun in his hand.

"Are you sure?"

"It's them or us." He said simply.

"I think I saw some knives in the kitchen." Roger said.

"Great. Go." the soldier nodded as he finished assembling the gun.

* * *

Elena, Sam, Rufus, and Jo hurried down the street. When they turned the corner into the town, they all started when they almost ran into Dean and Ellen.

"Whoa, whoa!" Dean shouted, ducking as they pointed the guns at them.

They quickly stopped, staring at each other.

"It's not demons." Sam and Dean spoke at once. "It's War."

The rest watched with raised eyebrows.

"I just can't figure out how he's doing it." Dean sighed.

"The ring." Elena reminded them.

"The ring. The ring… that's right. He turned it right before he made everybody hallucinate and go hellbitch." Dean nodded, shaking his head.

"Right." Sam said.

"We all on the same page?" Ellen asked.

They looked around, not seeing any black eyes. Everyone nodded at once.

"Good." Rufus nodded.

They all gathered together, glancing around.

"Hi, Jo." Dean said, waving at the blonde.

"Hey." She breathed, nodding at him.

"Okay, we got to find War before everybody in this town kills each…"

Gunshots sounded and they all ducked.

"Damn it!" Dean growled. "Those are real bullets."

They all ran for the nearest cover, a gas station.

"What do we do?" Jo asked.

"Elena will go out and distract them, take the guns if possible. They don't know if she's a demon or not, they haven't seen it. We'll go around the alley and try to take some by surprise.

"I'll go with her." Rufus nodded, gesturing to Elena.

They darted out of the gas station and ducked behind a car as Austin and the others opened fire on them.

"People, cease fire!" Rufus shouted as Elena slid around the car. "Stop shooting! Stop!"

He ran around the car, taking one of the men by surprise. He grabbed the gun and slammed him in the head with it.

"I'm getting too old for this." Rufus grumbled.

Elena ran straight towards Austin as he faced the other way to shout instructions at the pastor and a young woman. She kicked his legs out from underneath him, causing him to slam onto his back. Elena quickly slammed the butt of her shotgun into his head to knock him out. Just as she turned around, a man ran around the corner and shot at the pastor, hitting him in the stomach.

"Father!" the young woman screamed, collapsing next to him.

Elena ran up, kneeling next to the pastor as Rufus ran up and hit the man who was firing off the gun in any direction he could see.

"'Stop firing' usually means 'stop firing'." he growled.

The young woman looked up at Elena, her eyes wide.

"I'm not what you think." She said, putting the woman's hands over the wound. "Come on, keep your hands right here."

Elena looked up in time to see War walking up to the red Mustang. He looked over his shoulder, grinning and winking at her. When he turned back around, Dean and Sam were waiting on him. He laughed as they slammed him into the car. Sam drew the demon-killing knife.

"Whoa. Okay. That's a sweet little knife." War said, smirking. "But come on. You can't kill war, kiddos."

"Oh, we know." Dean nodded.

Sam suddenly slammed his right hand against the top of the car and cut all four of his fingers off. Dean leaned down to pick up the ring. When they looked up, War and the red Mustang were gone. Sam and Dean glanced around for him as Elena ran up. They all took a deep breath, looking around at the people who'd stopped fighting. Ellen, Jo, and Rufus walked up to them.

"Thanks, boys." Rufus said, reaching out to shake their hands.

Then he glanced at Elena, looking at her appraisingly.

"Bobby told me about the angels but he didn't say there was one on your shoulders."

Elena's eyes widened and she shook her head.

"I'm not an angel. At least, not really an angel. It's hard to explain. I'm a guardian." She said.

"Well a pretty powerful one, whatever that is." Jo said, smiling at her with a nod.

She smiled back hesitantly as Dean drew her into his side.

"This was a big one. War." Ellen sighed, looking at the bloody ring in Dean's hand.

"He was a nasty son of a bitch." Sam nodded.

* * *

Elena, Sam, and Dean sat at a picnic table a few states over. Dean was inspecting the ring as they watched.

"So, pit stop at Mount Doom?"

Elena glanced at Sam, who was silent and pensive.

"Dean…" he began, glancing up.

"Sam, let's not." The older brother sighed.

"No, listen. This is important." Sam argued. "I know you don't trust me."

Dean looked away as Elena stared down at her hands.

"Just, now I realize something. I don't trust me either.'

They both looked up at him with surprise.

"From the minute I saw that blood, only thought in my head..." Sam shook his head. "… and I tell myself it's for the right reasons, my intentions are good, and it, it feels true, you know? But I think, underneath...I just miss the feeling."

Dean swallowed hard and Elena took a deep breath, feeling like she was expecting for Sam to say all of this.

"I know how messed up that sounds, which means I know how messed up I am. Thing is, the problem's not the demon blood, not really. I mean, I, what I did, I can't blame the blood or Ruby or... anything." He continued, shaking his head as he stared down at his hands. "The problem's me. How far I'll go. There's something in me that... scares the hell out of me, Dean. In the last couple of days, I caught another glimpse..."

"So what are you saying?" Dean cut him off, sensing that something was coming.

Sam looked up at them.

"I'm in no shape to be hunting. I need to step back, cause I'm dangerous. Maybe it's best we just... go our separate ways."

Elena sat up, her eyes widening. She was shocked to see that Dean was considering his words.

"Well, I think you're right." he finally said.

Sam looked surprised too.

"I was expecting a fight." He admitted.

Elena couldn't bring herself to speak. She couldn't tell Sam that he had to stay, it would be wrong. If he wanted to take a break, who was she to refuse.

"_Dean will be Michael's vessel. We want him to be Michael's vessel and what we want to happen almost always happens."_

"The truth is I spend more time worrying about you than about doing the job right. And I just, I can't afford that, you know? Not now."

Sam nodded.

"I'm sorry, Dean." He sighed.

"I know you are, Sam." Dean said, nodding.

Sam moved to stand up, pulling his backpack over his shoulder. His eyes flickered to Elena, nodding at her with a slight smile.

"Take care of each other." he said.

"Yeah." Dean nodded. "You take care of yourself, Sammy."

Elena watched as he turned away and the words continued to echo through her head.

"_You have ninety days, Elena. That's three months… to convince him to say yes to Michael."_

"Sam." she finally broke, launching up.

He turned just as she threw her arms around him. Sam hugged her back with a sigh, pressing his face into her hair.

"Come back to us soon." She whispered.

"I will." He murmured.

Elena watched as he walked off. Dean stepped up next to her, sliding his hand into hers. She leaned into him, squeezing her eyes shut.

"_If, at the end of those ninety days, he still says no… well I'm afraid that those few minutes of hell that I showed you when I killed you in the storage room will be nothing compared to what I put you through when you fail me."_

* * *

**I hope you liked it!**

**Next: Elena gets some answers from Gabriel and Castiel comes to them for help.**


	4. We'll Hold Our Hands as We Crash-Land

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**CHAPTER TITLE: Crash/Land - In-Flight Safety**

**A few things:**

**1. This chapter will have answers!**

**2. There will be TVD characters in this chapter but not in a normal way. It sounds confusing but they will be here. I'm sorry for the lack of TVD characters mostly but I find myself enjoying writing in the Supernatural universe so much that I forget to include them. I'll try to keep them in the story more.**

**3. Gabriel is a bit of an asshole in this chapter but remember how he was in the Changing Channels episode. I couldn't put him completely on Elena's side willing to do anything to help her and then turn him around to be on the angels side in that chapter so I'm taking it slow. But he will stop being a dick at some point, I promise.**

**4. Italics are a flashback for Elena.**

**5. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**6. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

Elena peered up as she climbed out of the car. They were back at Bobby's. He was still in the hospital waiting on the final few tests that would confirm his irreversible paralysis. Sam had gone off to God knows where and he wasn't answering any of Elena's calls or texts. Dean looked over at her as they walked up to it with their bags slung over their shoulders.

"Do you wanna go to the bar… or something?" he asked.

Both of them weren't entirely sure how to react to this situation. It was the first time they'd really been alone since before Lucifer rose.

"I kinda just want to go to bed and stay there for a while." she mumbled, ascending the stairs with her hand loosely in his.

"Sounds good to me." he sighed.

As soon as they got in there, Elena didn't waste anytime before pulling off her shirt and pants before she climbed in between the blankets in her undergarments. Dean did the same thing, leaving on his boxers, before climbing in next to her. She laid her head on his chest.

"I'm not sleepy." She admitted.

"Neither am I." he replied.

It had been three days since Sam left them. Three days of nothing. Elena couldn't help but think of her countdown. She had eighty-seven days until Zachariah expected a result from her. He was doomed to be disappointed. Elena sat up and peered down at him.

"Do you ever regret meeting me?" she asked.

"What?" he replied, surprised by her question.

"I don't know… it's just… I know how much you've lost and how unwilling you probably are to let people into your life so that you won't lose someone else that you cared about…" she was cut off by his finger on her lips.

"I don't regret meeting you." he said, staring deep into her eyes.

She sighed and pulled his hand away, holding it in both of hers.

"What if someone were to use me against you?" she asked, looking down at him.

"Like you would let anyone do that." he scoffed, smirking doubtfully.

"Dean, I'm serious." Elena said.

He stared at her.

"What is this about, Elena?" he asked.

She looked back before shaking her head and letting go of his hand.

"Nothing." She sighed, turning away to pull her knees to her chest and place her chin on them, wrapping her arms around her legs.

He sat up and leaned over her, placing a kiss to her tattoo before trailing it up to her shoulder.

"What are you afraid of?" Dean whispered, making chills form all over her body.

"Everything." She whimpered softly, her voice breaking on the last syllable.

He reached out and turned her face towards him as he looked at her over her shoulder.

"I'm not gonna say that you shouldn't be afraid… but you can't let that fear hold you back or else you won't get anything done. We're facing a shitstorm of stuff here and we've only scratched the surface. There is so much we have left to deal with." He informed her.

"I know… I just don't want to lose you." she cried softly, a lonely tear sliding down her cheek.

"You won't lose me. Hey… you won't lose me." he assured her as more tears joined the first.

"You can't be sure of that. You can't ever assure me of that." her voice was thick with tears now as she stared into his brilliant green eyes.

"You're right. I can't." he sighed, stroking her wet cheek with his thumb.

She let out a soft sob.

"But you know what I can do?" Dean said, making her stare at him quizzically. "I can try like hell to stay with you. I can fight whoever and whatever might try to tear us apart and I can kick their asses back to heaven or hell, wherever they came from." He said.

She shook her head, letting out a single laugh as she dropped her head and let her hair form a curtain around her face as she wiped at her tears furiously. Dean reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear before turning her face once again.

"I'm not gonna let you go that easily." he said.

Elena stared at him. Warmth filled her at his words but she knew that she shouldn't get her hopes up. She simply leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Before she knew it, he pulled her around so that she was straddling his lap. His hands tangled in her hair as hers went around his torso to clutch at his back.

"We're alone." Dean gasped into her mouth.

"That we are." She agreed.

**LEMONY**

Elena gasped as he easily discarded her bra and pulled her down to lie on top of him as they kissed. As their lips melded together, he reached down and slid her underwear down, flipping her over to pull them all the way off. Elena stared up at him as he pulled her legs apart slowly and slid one hand down her thigh. When his hand found her center, he slid one finger along the length before teasing her sweet spot slowly, making her cry out and arch her back, before he slid it back down and into her. Another finger quickly joined it and his thumb found the bundle of nerves, teasing her endlessly as his fingers pushed in and out of her. She writhed on the bed with fervor as her entire body felt as though it was on fire.

"Dean, please." She cried, bucking her hips up as he continued to tease her mercilessly.

He smirked cockily down at her as she gripped the sheets underneath her hands. She let out a particularly loud scream of pleasure as her stomach began to coil and she approached her glorious finish.

She shouted his name, throwing her head back as wave after wave of pleasure rushed through her body.

Dean kissed his way up her body as she came down from her high and his fingers withdrew from her.

"So…" she whispered, looking up at him.

"In Colorado… when the soldier was flirting with me…" she trailed off.

Dean smirked, knowing exactly where this was going.

"Yes?" he urged her.

"You thought I was gonna flirt with him." she acknowledged..

"Mm-hm." he mumbled, looking down at her.

"You didn't like it." she murmured, reaching up to stroke his face.

He shook his head.

"Why not?"

He stared at her.

"Because I was jealous, you happy? I was fucking jealous." He growled before slamming his lips down onto hers in a bruising, passionate kiss.

Elena responded by flipping them over easily and pinning him down.

"Hell yes, I'm happy." She shot back before practically ripping his boxers off.

Her hand drifted over his manhood as she stared up at him hungrily. He stared at her with lust filled eyes but that wasn't the only emotion in them. It was there in his eyes just as it was in hers. Hidden but plainly shown at the same time. They still knew. Past everything. Past the apocalypse. Past everything that was happening with Sam. Past Bobby's paralysis and the angels' meddling practices. They still felt that way for each other even though neither of them voiced it.

Elena crawled up his body and let his tip tease her entrance, making him groan and his head fall back. She laid down on his body and tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging lightly to get him to look at her. When his eyes opened to reveal his darkened pools, she slowly sank down onto him. They stared at each other as he filled her completely and her warmth clenched around him delightfully. Elena bit her lip as her entire body sang with joy at being joined with him once more. She put her hands on his chest and lifted herself up to a sitting position before she began to move her hips. He groaned loudly and his hands went to her hips, guiding her movements subtly.

Their mixed noises of pleasure filled the air as they moved in sync, longing to be closer and closer to one another. Dean lifted himself up and her legs wrapped around his waist as he switched their positions. He began to drive himself into her slowly and languidly. Elena couldn't do anything but urge him on with moans and whimpers as her mind forgot how to form words. They both approached their climaxes together, their hands intertwined and their lips moving in sync. Their screams of pleasure as their bodies exploded were swallowed by their kissing. Finally Dean slid out of her and flipped them over so that she was sprawled across her chest. Their breathing slowly went back to normal as they just laid there.

**LEMONY OVER**

"Okay… now I'm tired." Elena sighed, pushing her hair out of her face.

"Yeah." Dean agreed.

She looked up at him and pressed a soft kiss to his lips one more time. The words hung in the air, unspoken though they were on the tips of both of their tongues. They both fell asleep thinking about how much they wished that it was easy enough so that they could just say it without fear of the hurt that came with the words.

* * *

Elena's eyes popped open and she realized that it was dark in the room. She didn't even remember falling asleep. Dean was sleeping peacefully next to her, his arm around her shoulders as she was curled up against his side with their legs tangled together. The sheets were haphazardly thrown across their hips and her chest was pressed into his side so there was nothing exactly visible. She suddenly got the feeling that they weren't alone. Her eyes scanned the room and she realized that someone was standing in the doorway.

"Jesus Christ, Gabriel!" she hissed as she jumped out of her skin.

He grinned at her as he walked forward, gleefully sucking on another red lollipop.

"How… compromising." He said with a wink, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Elena sat up, covering her chest with her arms, as she glared at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded in a whisper.

"No need to whisper. Sleeping beauty here won't wake up." Gabriel said, poking Dean's leg.

"Gabriel!" she snapped.

"Hold your horses, would you sweetheart? I'm here to give you some answers, if you still want them." He shrugged.

"Really? You sure you don't want to be vague anymore?" she demanded.

He simply grinned at her.

"This isn't exactly the best time." she began, gesturing to her state of undress.

"No worries. I can take care of that." he said before snapping his fingers.

They were suddenly standing on the side of a road. Elena looked down to see that she was fully clothed. When she noticed what she was wearing, her head snapped up to glare at Gabriel.

"This shirt is see through." She snapped, gesturing to the lacy shirt and the black bra that was quite visible underneath.

"And doesn't it look fantastic?" He replied without looking at her, peering down the road that they were on.

"No!"

He looked at her unamused face and then down at her clothing before sighing heavily.

"Yes, it does." He said, turning away.

Elena glared at him but she let it go in favor of figuring out what was going on.

"Where are we?" she asked, looking around and noticing that the place looked slightly familiar.

"Well I thought that you of all people would recognize this even if it has changed. We're in your very own Mystic Falls, cupcake. Almost nineteen years ago." he said, looking around as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

Elena gaped at him.

"Why are we in Mystic Falls… nineteen years ago?" she asked, unable to quite wrap her head around it even though she'd traveled backward in time before.

"Because right there…" he pointed at an oncoming car that stopped at a familiar house.

A young man jumped out and ran to the other side to help out a very pregnant teenage girl.

"… is your dearest mommy and daddy. The real ones." He said.

Elena stared at them with wide eyes as John helped Isobel up to the door. Her eyes filled with tears as it opened to reveal a much younger Grayson and Miranda standing there looking shocked.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, looking at him.

"Because this, baby girl, is where your story begins." He said with a wry grin before he snapped his fingers.

They were standing in a nursery. A coo came from the crib and Elena walked over to it to see her own eyes staring up at her.

"Okay… this is creepy." She admitted.

"You're gonna want to get out of the way." Gabriel said, pulling her away from the cradle.

Elena looked up to see her parents enter the room.

"Can they see us?" she asked as they approached the crib.

"Nope." He answered.

Miranda and Grayson leaned over the crib with wide grins.

"Good night, Elena." her mother said softly, reaching down to stroke her cheek.

"This is two months after you were born." Gabriel said as she watched the scene unfold in front of her.

"What's so important about this night?" she asked as her parents walked out and shut off the light.

"This…" he said, trailing off as someone appeared by the crib.

Elena gasped when she saw who it was.

"… is the night that you and I first met." He said, looking at the other version of himself.

She looked at him with wide eyes.

"Does this have something to do with the angel DNA? What did you do to me? Did you bleed into my mouth like that demon did to Sam?" she demanded.

"Nope. Angels are better than demons." He said, leading her closer to the crib. "All it takes is one touch."

The past version of Gabriel looked down at the baby version of her with a vaguely interested look.

"You're a little small for someone who is supposed to help save the world." Past Gabriel said, smirking down at her.

Baby Elena just grinned up at him and kicked her feet freely.

"Hmm… but you are adorable." He said, reaching down.

Elena watched with wide eyes as his finger brushed over her cheek. Baby Elena laughed gleefully as a bright light filled the room suddenly. Then it went away as quickly as it came and past Gabriel was no longer there.

"That's when it happened?" she asked, turning to present Gabriel.

"Yep." He nodded.

"Why did it happen?" she demanded.

He turned to her and shrugged.

"What can I say? I was bored." The angel said.

Elena narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh fine. I had a plan." He said.

"Which is?"

"Still in development." He replied.

She stared at him.

"You infused me with angel DNA for a plan that isn't even fully thought out yet?" Elena snapped.

"Well… it's mostly thought out. I really just knew that I would need a nice powerful guardian on my side. One that my brothers couldn't control as easy as the other guardians. You just fell into my lap almost literally. They were going to destroy your line until I stopped them." Gabriel explained, snapping his fingers so that they were on the street. "In fact, my siblings almost went back on their decision several times. They were convinced that, because you weren't created by us, you would be a great danger to them. If only they knew."

"The angels were scared of me?" she scoffed.

"Were? Pumpkin, they still are." He said, turning to her.

"Can we stop with the pet names?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't think so, Buttercup." He winked.

"Why are the angels still scared of me?" Elena sighed, exasperated by his constant teasing even if she'd only met him a few times.

"Because they can all sense the power you possess and that combined with the fact that you're not actually scared of them terrifies them."

"I'm not scared of them? They scare the shit out of me." she scoffed.

"Do they really, though? Or do you just trick yourself into thinking that you're scared of them because you know that you should be?" Gabriel countered.

Elena stared at him, unsure of how to answer his question because she honestly didn't know the answer.

"You've stood up to the angels more than any other guardian has dared to. Most non-angels wouldn't even be able to say most of the things you've said to them." He said.

"Why am I so different from other guardians?" she asked.

"Because of what I just did in that nursery." He said, gesturing back to the house.

"So you made me… less scared? That's it?" she asked.

"Of course that isn't it. I'm not entirely sure what other powers you'll develop because, let's face it, this has never been done before. But the more you use the ones you have, the more the others will be revealed." The angel explained.

"You gave me extra powers?" she asked.

"Well yeah. What would be the point in giving you the magic touch if I didn't, Sugar Plum?" he shrugged.

"Why?"

Gabriel stared at her.

"If you make a single joke about how you got the inspiration at the moment or anything of the sort, I swear to God I'll punch you in the face, I don't care if it hurts." Elena snapped.

He grinned and snapped his fingers. They were still standing in the street but the sun was high in the sky. She looked back to see her parents once again. Miranda and Grayson were sitting on the grass playing with a five-year-old Elena and a blow-up beach ball. They walked closer to see the two turn their backs for a moment and Elena saw Jenna up on the porch holding a young Jeremy. In that moment, young Elena threw the ball into the air and it caught on the wind, floating into the street. Young Elena followed it eagerly, paying the oncoming car no mind. Elena's eyes widened as Miranda turned and shrieked loudly. At the last second, someone darted across the road and grabbed Elena, running her to the safety of the sidewalk.

"That's why." He said, pointing at the situation.

Elena immediately realized that the rescuer of her younger self was, once again, Gabriel.

"You saved me." she breathed.

"Because you, honeysuckle, are one hell of a reckless human being. You have no idea how many times I've had to show up and save your life." he said with a roll of his eyes, reaching out to touch her shoulder, no doubt tired of snapping his fingers.

They disappeared once again and reappeared on a dock. It was their lakehouse. Elena looked around with questioning eyes before a vague memory flashed before her mind. Falling.

"I… I remember this." she admitted.

"I knew you would start remembering things at some point." He acknowledged.

He turned her around and pointed to a tree that a seven-year-old version of her was eagerly climbing. Jeremy was far off yelling at Elena to stop and that he would tell Mom and Dad and she would get in trouble. It all happened at once. Jeremy turned to run off and a smaller branch snapped under Elena's weight. She didn't have time to let out a cry of panic as she slid down the tree for a moment before falling backwards. Elena stared with shock as Gabriel appeared and caught her easily. The younger version of her looked up at him with wide eyes as they moved closer to see him set her at the base of the tree.

"You should be more careful." The past version of the angel said, looking down at her scraped knee.

"I didn't mean to." Young Elena said in a small voice.

"I know." He said before he reached out and touched her knee.

Both Elenas watched with surprise as he healed her wound. He looked up at her with a smirk, putting a finger over his lips in a shushing noise before he disappeared before her eyes.

"I never said anything about that. I remember now. I kept that all to myself, certain that no one would have believed me." Elena murmured.

"The sad thing is… your parents would have believed you. And they would have tried to hunt me down." Elena looked over at Gabriel. "Key word… tried."

Gabriel shot her a cocky grin before snapping his fingers. They weren't in Mystic Falls anymore. They were in a bar somewhere.

"When I realized just how much a magnet for trouble you were, I realized that I needed to have a strong defense in place for things of all natures just in case, for any reason, I couldn't get to you. So I found the one person… well, sort of person… that I could turn to, trusting that he would protect the young girl he knew of as the doppelganger." Gabriel said, pointing to a figure sitting at the bar.

Elena stared with shock in her eyes at his face.

"Elijah?" she whispered, turning to look at Gabriel.

"I saw the same thing in this vampire that you did. I saw honor." Gabriel said, pointing at yet another past version of him walking up.

"Hello." He said to the vampire who was drinking amber liquid out of a small glass.

"What are you?" Elijah asked immediately, turning to quirk an eyebrow at the angel.

"You do not mess around. That's all right. I respect it." Gabriel nodded, sitting down.

"You are not human. You're certainly not a vampire or a werewolf." Elijah acknowledged.

"And you are far too smart to think that those are the only beings that exist in this world."

Elijah nodded and turned back to his drink.

"I'm Gabriel. You're Elijah." He said, smirking when the vampire's head snapped back to him.

"Angels are supposed to be extinct. I heard the rumors that the witches wiped them out." he said.

"Witches have no such power. We simply ceased revealing our true visages. We're taking on human vessels now. Have been for a good thousand years."

"What is it you require of me? I know that you would not be here if there was not something you needed." Elijah said.

"We have a common interest." Gabriel informed him.

"And what would that be?" the vampire asked.

"A young girl that goes by the name Elena Gilbert."

Elijah looked at him with a confused look.

"You would know her by a different name. A title. The doppelganger." The angel informed him.

Elijah's eyes widened and he put the drink down, staring at Gabriel.

"What about her?"

"I know where she is. And I know what she is meant for."

"The sacrifice. But wouldn't an angel like you be more keen on protecting such a girl from a horrific experience?" Elijah asked.

"Yes I would. And that is why I do not mean the sacrifice. She is meant for so much more beyond that. I ensured that she would be. That is why I have decided to come to you. You have a quarrel with your brother." Gabriel said.

"That is putting it lightly." Elijah replied.

"You do not wish for this ritual to happen?"

"More than anything? No." the vampire said, shaking his head.

"Then you and I have a deal to make."

* * *

They disappeared and Elena found that they were back in Bobby's house in the kitchen.

"Wait… what deal did you make with him?" Elena asked.

"Keep you alive at all costs. No matter what it took." Gabriel said.

"He kept Klaus alive when he promised to kill him." she said.

"And for that he has vowed to repay you, hasn't he? Like I said, honorable."

"Why am I so important? Why have you fought to ensure my survival? This can't just be about keeping Sam and Dean alive. I mean, why would you care so much about them?" she asked, sitting at the table.

Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head.

"I couldn't care less about those two. I care about the war. And ending it. And you are central to that." Gabriel said.

"What do you have against the Winchesters?" she demanded, hoping that he would continue to be honest.

"Let's just say that they know me by a different name and even a different species. That is why I never appear in front of them. I wish to keep that up. And they've tried to kill me more than once, so that tends to irk a guy." Gabriel said, opening the fridge and looking around with a disgusted expression.

Elena stared at him before shaking her head.

"I don't know why I trust you. You seem like the opposite of someone I would trust." She admitted.

"Yes well… we all do crazy things." he acknowledged, closing the fridge and turning to her.

"Why did you ask Castiel to look after me? Why didn't you do it yourself? And why did you choose when you did to reveal yourself to me?" she asked.

"One question at a time, Babycakes. It's been a thousand years since I had any contact with any of my brothers. I got tired of them fighting and chose to live on earth instead of around their petty asses. When I knew it was time for you to find the Winchesters, I realized that my brothers would be watching to wait for me to show up so that they could drag me back into their playroom. That's when I contacted Castiel. He agreed to watch over you and keep our meeting a secret for the sake of the Winchesters' continued existence. When you freed Lucifer, I knew that my brothers would have too much to worry about without trying to hunt me down. So that's when I saw fit to contact you." Gabriel shrugged.

Elena stared at him.

"What is the part I play in the apocalypse? Why is it so important?" she asked.

"Isn't it obvious? I thought it would be with the offer Zachariah gave you."

"You knew about that?" she demanded, standing up.

"Of course I did." he shrugged.

"Well why didn't you stop him? Why don't you still stop him?" she asked angrily.

"Why would I do that?" the angel asked.

"Because he's threatening me… and Dean." Elena said as though it was obvious.

"No, he's threatening your relationship which I honestly couldn't care less about. Maybe you two need a little separation." Gabriel shrugged.

She glared at him, her eyes blazing with fury.

"That's not a decision that you or your brothers should get to make." She snapped.

"Oh… but it is." Gabriel nodded.

"Wait a minute you… you want Dean to say yes to Michael." She realized.

He stared at her.

"Of course I do. That's how this thing ends. Lucy and Mikey… final showdown." He said, flashing his hands as if he was reading a marquee sign.

"You are in full support of what Zachariah is doing." She breathed, sitting down once again.

"Well… he's going about it a little strangely but… yeah." Gabriel shrugged.

She glared up at him.

"Get out." she snapped.

"You can't just…" he began.

"Get the hell out of here!" she screamed, standing up and advancing on him. "I will never convince Dean to be Michael's vessel. You can take that back to your damn brothers!"

"And what if I told your precious lover about that little ultimatum? Do you think he would have the same view? How long do you think that it would take him to run to Zachariah and agree to his terms as long as you were left out of it?" Gabriel asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"If you tell Dean anything, I swear to God… I will go to Zachariah and tell him to kill me because I would never let Dean say yes. I will tape his fucking mouth shut before I let the word leave his lips." Elena snapped, her anger level rising quickly.

"You're being foolish." Gabriel said, no longer joking as he stared at her darkly.

"Get… out." she snapped.

"Until next time." Gabriel said with a wave before disappearing.

Elena stared at the spot that he disappeared from before turning to walk upstairs. When she got there, she quickly stripped the clothing off and climbed back into the bed, curling into Dean's side once again. Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to block everything out.

* * *

Elena jerked awake to the sound of the shower turning on. She looked over to see that the bed was empty. She sighed and flopped back onto the pillow, wishing that her mind would stop being so crowded with everything that was going on. She slid out of the bed and walked into the bathroom, stripping off her underwear and climbing into the shower. Dean jumped slightly when her arms wrapped around his stomach but he instantly relaxed in her embraced. Her cheek laid against his back as she just held him.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he turned around and looked down at her.

"I don't know. I just feel like today will be just as full of stuff as every day is. I wish there could be one day that we don't have to think about the apocalypse or anything." She admitted, looking up at him.

"Well… why can't we have that day?" Dean asked, turning towards her. "Here's the deal, we'll just go grab some food for the rest of the day and we'll stay here. We'll watch whatever movies Bobby happens to have or we'll talk or something to amuse ourselves. We won't think about anything."

She smiled up at him and nodded.

"That sounds good." She agreed.

"But first… you look far too sexy to resist." He said, lifting her into his arms as she giggled.

* * *

Elena was walking around the room picking her clothes up and Dean was in the bathroom shaving when she heard his surprised shout. She ran into the bathroom to see Castiel standing directly behind Dean, who was wearing a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and no shirt.

"Don't do that." Dean snapped as he turned around to glare at the angel.

"Hello, Dean, Elena." he nodded at them.

Dean looked up to see that Cas was standing inches from him.

"Cas, we've talked about this. Personal space?" he reminded him, making Elena smile slightly.

"My apologies." He said, stepping back as Dean turned to walk out of the bathroom.

He grabbed his shirt off of the bed and pulled it on as Cas shadowed his footsteps.

"How'd you find us? I thought we were flying below the angel radar." He said, looking back at him as he sat on the bed.

"You are. Bobby told me where you were." Cas said, looking between them. "I looked elsewhere in the house and found that you two are alone. Where's Sam?"

Dean's jaw tightened as Elena looked down at her hands.

"Us and Sam are taking separate vacations for a while. So. You find God yet? More importantly, can I have my damn necklace back, please?" he demanded, changing the subject.

"No, I haven't found him. That's why I'm here. I need your help." Cas said.

"No." Dean snapped, shaking his head.

Elena stared at him with surprise.

"Today… it's our day off. Vacation day. We'll help you tomorrow." Dean said, gesturing between him and Elena.

"Day off? It's the apocalypse. There are no days off." Castiel said as if the term was foreign to him.

"There are for us. Come back tomorrow, Chuckles." He said, shaking his head as he stood up.

Elena sighed and shook her head.

"What do you need help with, Cas?" she asked.

Dean stared at her with an incredulous expression.

"He came to us for help, Dean. We can't turn him away. Not after what he did for us. We'll have our day off afterwards." Elena said reassuringly.

Dean groaned and clenched his fists.

"What do you need help with? God hunt? Not interested." He said simply.

"It's not God. It's someone else." Cas said, looking at Elena gratefully before turning back to Dean.

"Who?" Elena asked, walking forward.

"Archangel. The one who killed me." Cas explained.

"Excuse me?" Dean said, disbelief in his tone.

"His name is Raphael."

"You were wasted by a teenage mutant ninja angel?" Dean scoffed.

Castiel ignored him.

"I've heard whispers that he's walking the earth. This is a rare opportunity." He said.

"For what? Revenge?" Dean asked.

"Information." The angel corrected the hunter.

"So, what, you think you can find this dude and he's just gonna spill God's address?" Dean asked as he pulled socks and shoes on.

"Yes, because we are gonna trap him and interrogate him." Cas nodded.

Both of them froze and stared at him.

"You're serious about this." Dean said.

"Cas, we all heard this angel coming down from heaven. He killed you once and almost destroyed an entire house and you want to trap him?" Elena asked, also unbelieving.

Castiel just stared at them.

"Give us one good reason why we should do this." Dean challenged him.

"Because you're Michael's vessel and no angel will dare harm you." Castiel said.

They both looked at him with surprise.

"Oh, so I'm your bullet shield." Dean nodded.

"I need your help, both of you, because you two are the only ones who'll help me. Please." Castiel said, his eyes wide and pleading.

Elena looked over at Dean as he considered it. When his eyes met hers, she nodded slowly and he sighed.

"All right, fine. Where is he?" he asked.

"Maine. Let's go." Cas said, sounding relieved as he reached out to touch Dean's forehead.

He leaned away, shaking his head.

"We're driving." He informed the angel.

* * *

Elena and Dean looked up at the sheriff's department of Waterville, Maine as they climbed out of the Impala.

"And we're here why?" Dean asked as he adjusted his tie and Elena pulled at her skirt.

"A deputy sheriff laid eyes on the archangel." Castiel explained.

"And he still has eyes? All right, what's the plan?" Dean asked, pulling out the two ID's.

Elena smirked down at the one he was holding for Castiel. It started out as a joke back when Lucifer wasn't free and the apocalypse didn't seem inevitable. They commented on Castiel's constant wearing of a suit and the fact that he could probably pull off an FBI badge pretty well. That's when Bobby got the idea to make a fake ID for the angel just for fun. She smiled fondly as the memory popped up in her head.

"_You can't make an ID without a picture." Elena reminded Bobby as they laughed over the idea of making the angel a badge._

"_Well then let's get a picture of the guy." Bobby shrugged._

_She laughed and shook her head as she curled up on the couch between Sam and Dean and Bobby sat at the desk. They were all drinking beers and actually enjoying each others' company. _

"_All right someone call the angel. We'll take him by surprise." Bobby said, standing up and getting ready._

"_No no wait. I'll take the picture." Elena said, stumbling up to Bobby and taking the camera from him, turning to be at the ready._

"_Dean, you call Cas." She said, pointing to him._

"_Am I the only one who thinks this isn't gonna go well?" Sam asked._

"_What if the camera takes a picture of his true visage and all of our eyes get burned out?" Dean asked, backing up his brother._

"_Just call him!" she laughed, ready to take the picture as soon as he showed up._

"_Ugh. This is gonna be bad. Cas! Get your feathery ass down here! We have need of you!" Dean yelled._

_Elena could barely contain herself as they heard the distinct noise of wings. Cas appeared in the room facing away from her and towards Dean._

"_What is it?" he asked._

"_Cas over here." Elena said, ready as soon as he turned to look at her with a confused expression._

_She pressed the button and flash filled the room. When she looked down, her peals of laughter filled the room at the befuddled look on the angel's face in the picture. She handed it to Bobby before she stumbled over to Cas and put her hands on his shoulders, looking up at him._

_"Bobby is gonna make you a fake FBI badge. You'll officially be one of us." She said, patting his shoulder._

"_I think that she is inebriated." Cas said to the rest of them._

"_Aren't we all?" Dean shrugged, standing up and walking over to Elena to guide her back to the couch._

_Bobby got busy with making the badge while they all laughed over the picture as they passed it around._

"_Have I missed something?" Cas asked._

"_It's called a joke." Sam said, standing up to get another beer for everyone._

"_Can you bring me some candy, Sam?" Elena asked, looking up at him with pleading eyes._

"_I'll bring you whatever you want, Lena." He said, smiling back at her and making her face light up with happiness._

"_Thank you, Sam." She said, thrilled._

_Dean grinned at her as she settled in his arms._

"_Cas, wait. Don't leave. Hang out with us." Elena stopped him._

"_Hang out?" the angel asked, confused at the words._

"_Chill? Talk? Make conversation? Have fun?" she listed._

"_Have fun? All right." Cas said, walking to a chair and sitting down, staring around at them awkwardly._

_Elena grinned at his attempt to act normal._

"_You want a beer, Cas?" Dean asked._

"_A beer?" the angel asked, sounding unsure._

"_It'll be okay." Elena promised getting up and bounding into the kitchen to grab him one. _

_Sam was in there gathering up the stuff._

_"I'm getting a beer for Cas too." She informed him._

_"We're gonna get the angel drunk?" Sam asked, smirking._

"_I'm sure it takes more than one beer to get an angel drunk." Elena said with a roll of her eyes as she grabbed it and grinned up at Sam as they walked back into the other room._

_She handed it to Cas and helped Sam pass out the other stuff, taking the big bag of Sour Patch Kids for herself to sort through it and claim the red ones._

"_Don't eat all of the red ones!" Dean argued, trying to grab it out of her hands._

"_They're mine!" she shrieked, attempting to keep the bag away from him as she popped one into her mouth._

_Sam and Bobby watched, laughing as they fought like children over the candy. Castiel just looked alarmed as he held the beer bottle in his hands. Dean finally wrestled the bag out of her grip and they settled on sharing them as Elena pouted._

"_You're supposed to drink it, Cas." Dean said as he handed Elena a handful of the red Sour Patch Kids that he picked out as she beamed up at him._

_The angel stared at him with an uncertain look before lifting the bottle to his lips. He took a slow sip and his eyes widened at the taste._

"_It is strange." he admitted as he swallowed._

"_Congrats, Cas. You've just had your first taste of alcohol at a bajillion years old." Elena informed him, leaning into Dean's arms and laying her head on his shoulder._

"_No such number exists." Castiel informed her before taking another longer drink as they continued to talk, drink, and have fun._

Elena blinked as she pulled herself out of the memory and adjusted her jacket.

"We'll... tell the officer that he witnessed an angel of the Lord, and the officer will tell us where the angel is." Cas said, confused.

"Seriously? You're going to walk in there and tell him the truth?" Dean asked as they raised their eyebrows at him.

"Why not?" Castiel asked.

"Because we're humans." Dean said, stashing the ID inside of Castiel's coat before adjusting his coat and tie.

Elena watched with an amused expression, thinking that it was a little bit adorable that Dean was helping Castiel with his clothing.

"And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie." Dean informed the angel.

"Why?" Cas asked.

"Because… that's how you become President." Dean nodded before looking back at Elena and nodding as they crossed the street to walk into the building.

* * *

When they got inside, they were immediately directed to the back to find a Deputy Framingham, who witnessed the archangel.

"Deputy Framingham?" Dean asked as they saw a man standing there.

He turned to squint at them and Dean held up his badge.

"Hi. Alonzo Mosely, FBI. This is my partner, Eddie Moscone." He said, gesturing to Castiel.

Castiel stood there staring at the deputy, trying to look intimidating but really succeeding in looking like a kicked puppy, which was impressive because when he wasn't trying, he could look terrifyingly intimidating.

"Also FBI." Dean sighed.

Castiel still did nothing as they both stared at him. He suddenly caught on and pulled out the badge, fumbling with it before opening it to display it upside-down. Elena fought back the smile that threatened to overtake her face. Dean rolled his eyes, exasperated, before reaching over to flip it right side up for the angel.

"He's, uh, he's new. This is our analyst, Madison Tate." He said, gesturing to Elena, who nodded pleasantly at the deputy. "Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

Castiel peered down at the ID curiously and Elena smiled at him.

"Yeah, sure. Talk here, though." He said, indicating his right ear.

They all turned to walk into his office.

"Hearing's all blown to hell in this one." He said, gesturing to his left ear.

"That happen recently?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. Gas station. Why you're here, isn't it?" Framingham asked.

"Yes, it is." Dean nodded as they all sat down.

Elena pulled out a notepad.

"You mind just, uh, running us through what happened?" Dean suggested.

"A call came in. Disturbance out at the Pump and Go on Route 4." The deputy explained.

"What kind of disturbance?" Dean asked.

"Would not have believed my eyes if I hadn't seen it myself. We're talking a riot. Full scale." Framingham explained.

"How many?" Dean questioned.

"Thirty, forty, in all-out kill-or-be-killed combat?" he said.

"Any idea what set them off?"

"It's angels and demons, probably." Cas said, causing them all to look at him.

He looked directly back at the deputy.

"They're skirmishing all over the globe." Cas informed him.

"Come again?" Framingham turned to Dean. "What did he say?"

"Nothing." Dean said at the same time as Castiel said, "Demons."

They looked at each other.

"Nothing." Dean repeated and the angel said, "Demons." Once more before catching on and shutting up.

"Demons, you know, drink, adultery. We all have our demons, Walt." Dean said, trying to brush it off.

"I guess." The deputy said, staring between the two males before shaking his head.

Dean stared over at Castiel before looking back at the deputy.

"Anyway. What happened next?" he asked.

"Freaking explosion, that's what. They said it was one of those underground gas tanks, but, uh, I don't think so." he said, shaking his head.

"Why not?" Dean asked.

"Wasn't your usual fireball. It was, um…" the deputy trailed off.

"Pure white." Castiel guessed.

"Yeah. Gas station was leveled. Everyone was... it was just horrible. And I see this one guy, kneeling, real focused-like, not a damn scratch on him." Framingham said.

"You know him?" Dean asked.

"Donnie Finneman. Mechanic there." the deputy nodded.

"Let me guess, he just, uh, vanished into thin air?" Dean asked.

"Uh, no, Kolchak. He's down at St. Pete's." the deputy said, narrowing his eyes at them.

Castiel turned to Dean with a narrowed look.

"St. Pete's." he repeated for their benefit.

"Thank you." Dean said sarcastically.

* * *

Elena walked behind Castiel and Dean as they approached a room at St. Pete's. They were directed to it by a male orderly and looked through the window at a man sitting in a wheelchair staring at the wall. He was catatonic.

"I take it that's not Raphael anymore?" Dean asked.

"Just an empty vessel." Cas confirmed, nodding.

"So is this what I'm looking at if Michael jumps in my bones?" he asked, turning to the angel.

Castiel's eyes flashed to Elena before looking back at Dean.

"No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It'll be far worse for you." he said simply, making Elena look down at her shoes and Dean look away awkwardly.

* * *

Elena looked up as Dean paced the abandoned house thumbing through his father's journal. Castiel had brought them there to stay until he returned before disappearing without any further explanation.

"I'm sure he'll be back soon." She said.

"Yeah, I just don't know why we have to be in the Blair Witch Project." Dean said, gesturing around the creepy, empty cabin-like house.

She opened her mouth to say something but Castiel appeared holding a ceramic jug.

"Where've you been?" Dean asked, walking up to them as the angel sat at the table with Elena.

"Jerusalem." Cas said, looking up at him.

Dean exchanged a surprised look with Elena.

"Oh, how was it?" he asked without missing another beat.

"Arid." Cas replied.

"What's that?" Elena asked, pointing at the jug.

"It's oil. It's very special. Very rare." He answered.

"Okay, so we trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?" Dean asked sarcastically.

"No." Cas answered automatically as if he was used to Dean's ridiculous statements.

"When does this ritual have to happen?" Elena asked, leaning forward onto her elbows.

"Sunrise." He replied, looking back at her.

"Tell me something. You keep saying we're gonna trap this guy. Isn't that kind of like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?" Dean asked, standing next to the table.

"No, it's harder." Cas said, glancing up at him.

"Do we have any chance of surviving this?"

"You do." Cas said, making Elena's eyes widen.

"So odds are you're a dead man tomorrow." Dean nodded.

"Yes." The angel confirmed.

"No. No no. You just came back. You can't just… die again." Elena said.

"Well… unless my father decides to step in again, Raphael has far more power than me." Cas informed her.

"So tell me why this is a good idea, again?" she requested, staring back at him.

"Because it's the best chance I have of finding God."

Elena sighed and shook her head, looking down at her hands.

"Well. Last night on earth. What are your plans?" Dean asked, sounding as casual as he could.

"I just thought I'd sit here quietly." Cas said confusedly.

Elena glanced up at Dean.

"Come on, anything? Booze, women?"

She rolled her eyes at his last suggestion and he shrugged in her direction as Castiel looked away from Dean uncomfortably. They stared at him for a moment, comprehending his awkward gaze directed at the table.

"You have been with women before. Right? Or an angel, at least?" Dean questioned, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Dean! You don't need to know that!" Elena said, feeling bad for the suddenly embarrassed angel who was rubbing the back of his neck.

"You mean to tell me you've never been up there doing a little cloud-seeding?" Dean asked, ignoring her protests.

"I've never had occasion, okay?" Cas said quickly.

"All right." Dean grabbed his jacket and turned to the angel. "Let me tell you something. There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch. Let's go."

Dean looked at Elena.

"I am not going with you." she scoffed.

"But…"

"You are on a mission to de-virginize an angel, which I'm pretty sure is sacrilegious. I know you're going to a brothel of some sort, where I have zero interest in going. So no, I'm not going with you." she said, shaking her head stubbornly.

"Fine." He sighed, handing her the Impala keys.

"What is this?" she asked, confused.

"I don't want to leave you stuck at this place. Go find a motel and text me where it is. I'll have Cas zap us into town." He said, gesturing to the wide-eyed angel.

"This is not going to go well." She warned Dean.

* * *

Dean chuckled as Castiel looked at him with a terrified expression.

"Hey. Relax." He said.

"This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here." The angel said.

"Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks." Dean smirked.

A hooker began to approach them in white lingerie and Dean looked up at her.

"Showtime." He said happily.

"Hi. What's your name?" she asked in a seductive voice as Castiel tried not to look at her.

"Cas." Dean said, startling him as he looked back at the hunter.

"His name is Cas. What's your name?" he said, looking up at her with a smile.

"Chastity." She said, smiling.

"Chastity." Dean said, looking back at Cas.

He picked up his beer and began drinking it as fast as he could.

"Wow. Is that kismet or what, buddy? Well, he likes you, you like him, so dayenu." Dean said as Chastity tugged Castiel up.

"Come on, baby." She said, pulling him towards the back.

Dean stood and grabbed his coat, stopping him.

"Hey, listen. Take this." he said, handing him a wad of money.

"If she asks for a credit card, no. Now just stick to the basics, okay? Do not order off the menu. Go get her, tiger." He said.

Castiel remained still and stared at him with an expression that screamed 'get me out of here'.

"Don't make me push you." Dean threatened, smirking.

Castiel took the money and turned to follow Chastity.

Another hooker walked up to him and he shook his head.

"Sorry, darling. I've got a girl waiting on me at home." he said, brushing her off.

* * *

Elena was lounging on the bed at their motel room when she got a text. She pulled her phone out and unlocked it, squinting at the message.

**Help me**

It was from a number that she didn't recognize but, somehow, she knew exactly who the plea for help came from. With a smirk on her face, she grabbed the Impala keys and began looking for the address of the brothel that Dean would have taken Castiel to.

* * *

Dean was sitting at the bar when he heard a bloodcurdling scream from the back. He sighed and stood up, knowing that it wasn't good.

"Get out of my face! Leave me alone! Bastard! Screw you, jerk!" Chastity was screaming at Castiel as she shoved the money back into his hands.

He looked extremely disheveled and confused.

"I'll kill you!" the upset hooker shouted, turning to stomp past Dean, recognizing him immediately as he stared upon the scene with a confused look.

"Screw you too! God! Oh! Jerk!" she spat at him before running off.

"The hell did you do?" Dean demanded as he walked up to the still terrified angel.

"I don't know. I just looked her in the eyes and told her it wasn't her fault that her father Gene ran off. It was because he hated his job at the post office." Cas said.

"Oh, no, man." Dean said, rubbing his forehead with a grimace.

"What?" Castiel asked.

"This whole industry runs on absent fathers. It's… it's the natural order." He explained.

Castiel looked past him and he turned to see two bouncers walking towards them.

"We should go. Come on." he said, pulling Castiel towards the door at the end of the corridor.

When they got outside, he began laughing much to the confusion of the angel.

"What's so funny?" Castiel asked.

"Oh nothing. It's been a while since I've laughed that hard." Dean said, chuckling as they walked down the alleyway towards the street.

When they walked onto it, they immediately recognized the girl leaning against the black Impala.

"Seriously?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Hey, why are you here?" Dean asked.

"Because I received an angelic text for help. What did you do to the poor guy?" Elena asked upon seeing Castiel's partly scared expression and part pride at making Dean laugh.

"I did nothing. Ask him what he did to Chastity though." He smirked as she handed him the keys and walked forward to reassure the angel that she wouldn't let Dean take him back in one of those places.

"Seriously? Chastity?" she said, rolling her eyes as they climbed into the car.

* * *

Elena looked back at Castiel and Dean, who were gathered around Donnie Finneman in his wheelchair and pouring a circle of oil around him. She was keeping watch for anyone who might come.

"When the oil burns, no angel can touch or pass through the flames, or he dies." Castiel explained.

"Okay, so we trap him in a steel cage of holy fire, but one question. How the hell do we get him here?" Dean questioned as he stepped back.

"Very simple. There's, well, almost an open phone line between a vessel and his angel. One just has to know how to dial." The angel explained.

He leaned down to Donnie's ear and began chanting in a language that neither of them understood and assumed to be Enochian.

"I'm here, Raphael. Come and get me, you little bastard." Castiel growled as he backed away and stepped out of the circle.

Elena looked back at him, smiling slightly and not knowing whether to proud or ashamed that they'd corrupted the angel to the point of cursing.

"Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel?" Dean asked as they waited.

"Be ready." Cas warned them, lighting a match and dropping it on the oil, which bursted into a ring of flame.

"Well that's a day I'll never get back." Dean sighed as they pulled up to the cabin to get their weapons that they left there and take them back to the motel room that Elena had rented.

They walked up to the house and walked in. Castiel stopped short and grabbed their arms.

"Wait." He said, pulling them back.

There was a bright light and they looked to see Raphael's vessel standing in there. Lightning flashed as his wings were revealed as light bulbs shattered around them.

"Castiel." Raphael said, narrowing his eyes at them.

"Raphael." Cas acknowledged as they walked closer.

"And I thought you were supposed to be impressive. All you do is black out the room." Dean scoffed.

"And the Eastern Seaboard." The archangel shot back as more lightning flashed outside. "It is a testament to my unending mercy that I do not smite you here and now."

"Or maybe you're full of crap. Maybe you're afraid God will bring Cas back to life again and smite you and your candy-ass skirt. By the way, hi, I'm Dean. This is Elena." Dean said with a smirk as he handed her a beer from the table and she took it, taking a long sip.

"I know who you are. And now, thanks to him, I know where you are." Raphael said, glancing between them.

"You won't kill them. You wouldn't dare." Castiel said, walking to stand in front of them.

Elena rolled her eyes and stepped around to stand on one side of him as Dean stood on the other.

"But I will take him to Michael." Raphael threatened.

"Well then. Sounds terrifying. It does. But, uh, hate to tell you, I'm not going anywhere with you." Dean said before taking a drink of his own beer.

"Surely you remember Zachariah giving you stomach cancer? And killing your girl here?" Raphael asked, looking at Elena.

"Yeah… that was hilarious." Elena snapped, glaring at him.

"Well, he doesn't have anything close to my imagination."

"Yeah? I bet you didn't imagine one thing." Dean said, raising an eyebrow at the angel.

"What?" Raphael scoffed, positive that they didn't know anything he didn't know.

"We knew you were coming, you stupid son of a bitch." Dean growled, lighting his lighter and throwing it onto the ground.

The holy oil ignited and formed a circle around Raphael, who didn't flinch but instead glared at Dean.

"Don't look at me, it was his idea." Dean said, pointing at Castiel with a smirk.

Cas turned to give him a look before focusing back on the furious archangel.

"Where is he?" he demanded.

"God? Didn't you hear? He's dead, Castiel. Dead." Raphael informed him in an emotionless voice.

"You're lying." Castiel snapped.

"Am I? Do you remember the twentieth century? Think the twenty-first is going any better? Do you think God would have let any of that happen if he were alive?"

"Oh yeah? Well then who invented the Chinese basket trick?" Dean asked, chuckling at his joke.

"Careful. That's my father you're talking about, boy." Raphael snapped as Elena sniggered too, shaking her head at the hunter's immaturity.

"Yeah, who would be so proud to know his sons started the frigging apocalypse." Dean scoffed.

"Who ran off and disappeared. Who left no instructions and a world to run." Raphael said, turning back to glare at Cas.

"Daddy ran away and disappeared. He didn't happen to work for the post office, did he?"

Elena let out a laugh and shook her head as Castiel let out a small smile at the joke that he shared with the two now.

"This is funny to you? You're living in a godless universe." Raphael informed them.

"And? What, you and the other kids just decided to throw an apocalypse while he was gone?" Elena fired back.

"We're tired. We just want it to be over. We just want... paradise." Raphael said.

"So, what, God dies and makes you the boss and you decide you can do whatever you want?" Dean asked.

"Yes. And whatever we want, we get." Raphael said, turning his eyes on Elena.

She knew that he was talking about Zachariah's offer.

"_We want him to be Michael's vessel and what we want to happen almost always happens. Wait… what am I saying? What we want always happens." _

Zachariah's words echoed through her head. Were all of the angels behind the plan to blackmail her into making Dean say yes? Were all of them going to be furious when they found out that she didn't give a shit what they wanted? That she was never going to convince Dean to do such a thing?

"If God is dead, why have I returned? Who brought me back?" Cas demanded, pulling Elena out of her thoughts.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe Lucifer raised you?" Raphael said.

Castiel's eyes widened and he looked terrified at the thought.

"No." he said, shaking his head.

"Think about it. He needs all the rebellious angels he can find. You know it adds up." Raphael said with a smirk.

"Let's go." Cas said, grabbing Elena's hand and turning to walk out with Dean following them.

"Castiel, I'm warning you. Do not leave me here. I will find you." the archangel threatened.

Cas looked back at him, sizing him up.

"Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch." The angel said before turning to walk out.

"What he said." they heard Dean say proudly as he grabbed the weapons bag and walked out behind them.

* * *

Elena was sitting in the backseat, allowing Cas to sit up front with Dean. The angel in question was staring out the window with a pensive expression.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

Castiel remained silent and Dean looked back at Elena before sighing and nodding.

"Look, I'll be the first to tell you that this little crusade of yours is nuts, but I do know a little something about missing fathers." He said.

"What do you mean?" Cas finally replied, turning to look at Dean with a furrowed brow.

"I mean every time I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead, but I knew in my heart he was still alive. Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas, what do you believe?" Dean asked him, making Elena smile as his attempt to help the angel.

"I believe he's out there." Castiel said, sounding hopeful.

"Good. Go find him." Dean nodded.

"What about you?" Cas asked, looking back at Elena.

"What about me? I don't know. Honestly, I'm good. I can't believe I'm saying that because you know, apocalypse… but I am, I'm really good." Dean said, smiling at Elena through the rearview mirror.

"Even without your brother?" the angel asked, making Elena's breath catch in her throat.

She missed Sam but she wasn't sure whether or not Dean missed his brother.

"Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I've had more fun with you two in the past twenty-four hours than I've had with Sam in years, and, no offense Cas, but you're not that much fun. It's funny, you know, I've been so chained to my family, but now that I'm without any of them, hell, I'm happy." Dean said.

Elena was too busy staring at him with disbelief in her eyes that she didn't notice Castiel disappear from the passenger seat.

* * *

"Sam. Sam." A voice whispered.

Sam shot up and looked around to see someone there he never expected to be there. He'd been seeing her ever since he left Dean and Elena and he wasn't sure if she was a hallucination or a dream. She smiled at him and reached out to stroke his cheek.

"So. This is your life now? Think you can just live forever with your head buried in the sand? That you can work at a bar under an alias and try to forget about everything you know?" she asked, looking up at him.

He stared at her with surprise but the only words he could find were ones that didn't answer her question at all.

"I love you, Jess." He said, staring at her.

"Sam, you can't keep ignoring everything. Things are happening and you belong out there dealing with them. You can't change, Sam. You need to go deal with them."

He sighed, shaking his head as he sat up.

"God knows how much I miss you, too. But you're wrong. People can change. There is reason for hope."

"No, Sam. There isn't." she said, sitting up as well.

Sam was facing away from her so he didn't see her features transform into a blonde man.

"How can you be so sure?" Sam asked, staring down at his hands.

"Because you freed me." he said.

Sam jumped off of the bed and whirled around, backing away from him.

"That's right. You know who I am." The man said, sliding off of the bed and standing there.

"Lucifer." Sam said.

"You are a hard one to find, Sam. Harder than most humans. I don't suppose you'd tell me where you are?" Lucifer asked.

"What do you want with me?" Sam demanded.

"Thanks to you, I walk the earth. I want to give you a gift. I want to give you everything." Lucifer shrugged.

"I don't want anything from you." Sam snapped.

"I'm so sorry, Sam, I… I really am, but Nick here is just an improvisation. Plan B. He can barely contain me without spontaneously combusting." He said, gesturing down to the vessel he was wearing.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked.

"Why do you think you were in that chapel?" Lucifer asked, moving closer to him. "You're the one, Sam. You're my vessel. My true vessel."

Sam's eyes widened and he shook his head, refusing to accept that."

"No."

"Yes." Lucifer nodded.

"No. That'll never happen." Sam said stubbornly.

"I'm sorry, but it will. I will find you. And when I do, you will let me in. I'm sure of it."

"You need my consent." Sam realized.

"Of course. I'm an angel." Lucifer said as if it was obvious.

"I will kill myself before letting you in." Sam snapped, backing away.

"I'll just bring you back." Lucifer said before sighing. "Sam. My heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders, what you've done, what you still have to do. It is more than anyone could bear. If there was some other way... but there isn't. I will never lie to you. I will never trick you. But you will say yes to me."

"You're wrong." Sam fought back.

"I'm not. I think I know you better than you know yourself." Lucifer said.

"Why me?" Sam asked, his heart pounding out of his chest as he looked down at the ground and the weight of this crushing blow bore down on his shoulders.

"Because it had to be you, Sam. It always had to be you."

Sam gasped and sat up in the bed, looking around to see that he was alone in the room.

"This is bad." He murmured.

* * *

**I hope you liked it!**

**Next: This is the future episode and it will be in Dean's point of view. I will give you a hint, Elena is in the chapter but she just so happens to be future Elena instead of present Elena.**


	5. Days of White Robes Have Come and Gone

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks to TheElegantFaerie, RHatch89, xxPaige23xx, Nyssandria, KwC1994, beverlie4055, Dean Winchester Rocks, unitfive, DrawingMyHeartOut, Ojha, Roswell Triquetra, DeanElenafan, and the guest for reviewing!**

**I am so sorry it took so long. I have been crazy busy these past few days.**

**CHAPTER TITLE: Red Dress (Glitch Mob Remix) – TV on the Radio**

**A few things:**

**1. There is a TVD character in this chapter.**

**2. Some of Elena's new abilities are revealed, but not in the way that you think they will be. Just pay close attention to future Elena.**

**3. Elena and a certain other person's outfits are on my profile.**

**4. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

It had been ten days since Zachariah gave her the ultimatum. Nine days since they'd seen Sam. A week since they'd seen Cas. They just finished cleaning out a nest of vampires in Sumpter, Oregon and now they were in Kansas City. She was staring out of the window as they drove through the town and came to a stop at a motel.

"Elena?" Dean said, concerned by her silence. "Are you all right?"

She sighed, looking back at him.

"I'm just tired." she admitted.

Elena didn't dare to admit that she missed Sam. She'd already made that mistake once a few days and it hadn't gone well.

"_It's been a long time coming. I should have known it was going to happen. Sam has always been so unwilling to listen to others, even if it will help him."_

"_Maybe if you just tried…"_

"_I have tried everything, Elena! For most of our lives, I have tried! He's gone!"_

_She stared at him with a sad expression._

"_He may be gone for you, but he isn't gone for me." Elena said, shaking her head at him._

They climbed out of the car and went around to grab their bags. Dean started to reach for hers but Elena gave him a look, yanking it out herself. Dean sighed heavily, following her towards the motel. A religious man suddenly stopped them, glancing between the two with wide eyes.

"Excuse me, friends, but have you taken time out to think about God's plan for you?"

Dean looked him up and down as Elena frowned at the man. Something wasn't right about him.

"Too fucking much, pal." The hunter growled.

Elena followed him towards the hotel, glancing back to see the man still watching them.

* * *

Once they were in the motel room, Elena went to the bathroom to wash her face and get ready to sleep. When she walked out, Dean was on the phone. He nodded at her and put it on speaker.

"We're talking about the Colt, right? I mean, as in the Colt?" he asked.

Elena's attention was captured by that, her head lifting.

"We are." Castiel answered, his voice scratchy over the phone.

"Well, that doesn't make any sense. I mean, why would the demons keep a gun around that, uh, kills demons?" Dean questioned.

They heard a loud noise on the other end of the phone.

"What? What? Did… I didn't… I didn't get that." Cas yelled, cutting out.

Dean laughed as he sat on the bed.

"You know, it's kind of funny. Talking to a messenger of God on a cell phone. It's, you know, like watching a Hell's Angel ride a moped." He said.

Elena held back her smile, not wanting to give him the satisfaction at the moment.

"This isn't funny, Dean. The voice says I'm almost out of minutes." Castiel said, sounding frustrated.

"Okay, all right. I'm-I'm telling you, Cas, the mooks have melted down the gun by now." Dean sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Well, I hear differently. And if it's true and if you are still set on the insane task of killing the devil, this is how we do it." the angel said with assurance.

"Okay." Dean said.

"Where do we start?" Elena asked, leaning closer to the phone.

"Where are you now?" Castiel asked, not sounding surprised to hear her.

"Kansas City." Dean answered.

He gestured towards the room key and Elena handed it to him so that he could read off the information.

"Century Hotel, room 113."

"I'll be there immediately." Castiel said.

Elena shook her head quickly, her eyes wide. Dean was on the same path of thinking as she was.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, come on, man." he said, shaking his head as well. "We just drove like sixteen hours straight, okay? We human. And there's stuff we have to do."

"What stuff?" Castiel asked suspiciously.

"Eat, for example. In this case, sleep." Dean answered.

"We just need like four hours once in a while, okay?" Elena said pleadingly.

There was a heavy sigh on the other end.

"Yes." Castiel finally said.

"Okay, so, you can pop in tomorrow morning." Dean said, wanting confirmation that he understood.

"Yes. I'll just…"

Dean hung up and Elena squinted at him.

"You could be a little nicer. He's cut off from heaven because of us." She reminded him.

He opened his mouth to argue but shook his head, not wanting to do it anymore.

"Can we not tonight? I'm exhausted and I just want some sleep." Dean sighed.

Elena stared at him for a moment before nodding once. She ripped the blankets up and slid underneath them turning over to face away from him as she laid down.

"Elena, I'm just trying to do what's best here." Dean said, referring to Sam.

She knew exactly what she was talking about.

"For who?" Elena questioned.

They fell silent and he had no idea how to answer that.

* * *

An hour later, Dean's phone vibrated on the bedside table. He jerked awake, glancing over at Elena before answering it.

"Damn it, Cas, I need to sleep!" he complained, sliding out of the bed.

"Dean, it's me."

His head lifted and he glanced at the clock.

"Sam? It's quarter past four." Dean said, his brow furrowing.

"This is important." Sam tried to convince him.

He sighed heavily, moving away from Elena to sit in a chair in the corner. Ten minutes later, he was still absorbing everything that Sam told him.

"So, you're his vessel, huh? Lucifer's wearing you to the prom?" he said, rubbing a hand across his jaw.

"That's what he said." Sam confirmed.

"Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in, huh, Sammy?" Dean joked, shaking his head.

There was a moment of silence.

"So, that's it? That's your response?" Sam finally said.

"What are you looking for?" Dean questioned quietly.

"I don't know. A-a little panic? Maybe?" his brother said, sounding panicked himself.

Elena shifted in the bed and she turned over, her hair fanning out over the pillow as she sighed in her sleep.

"I guess I'm a little numb to the earth-shattering revelations at this point."

"What are we gonna do about it?" Sam asked, sounding frustrated.

"What do you want to do about it?" Dean replied.

Sam took a deep breath.

"I want back in, for starters."

"Sam…" Dean began warily.

"I mean it. I am sick of being a puppet to these sons of bitches. I'm going to hunt him down, Dean." Sam said.

"Oh, so, we're back to revenge, then, are we? Yeah, 'cause that worked out so well last time." he scoffed.

"Not revenge. Redemption." He said, sounding sure of himself.

Dean watched Elena, knowing what she would say in this situation. She'd be glad to welcome Sam back but she didn't know what could happen. She didn't want to think about it. If Sam got caught up in the demon blood again, it could be even worse this time.

"So, what, you're just gonna walk back in and we're gonna be the dynamic trio again?" Dean asked, knowing what he had to do.

Elena would probably be furious if she found out but it was a chance he would have to take.

"Look, Dean, I can do this. I can. I'm going to prove it to you." Sam tried to convince him.

"Look, Sam… it doesn't matter… whatever we do. I mean, it turns out that you and me, we're the, uh, the fire and the oil of the Armageddon. You know, on that basis alone, we should just pick a hemisphere. Stay away from each other for good." Dean said, looking down at his hands.

When Sam spoke again, he sounded devastated.

"Dean, it does not have to be like this. We can fight it."

Dean scoffed, shaking his head.

"Yeah, you're right. We can. But not together. We're not stronger when we're together, Sam. I think we're weaker. Because whatever we have between us… love, family, whatever it is… they are always gonna use it against us. And you know that. Yeah, we're better off apart. We got a better chance of dodging Lucifer and Michael and this whole damn thing, if we just go our own ways."

"But you can stay with Elena? That's not love or family or whatever? I need you guys and I think you need me. Dean, please don't do this." his brother pleaded.

Dean sighed, closing his eyes.

"Bye, Sam." he said before hanging up.

* * *

When Dean woke up again hours later, he shifted, grimacing at the sudden uncomfortable feeling of the mattress below him. When he turned over and opened his eyes, Elena wasn't there. Neither was that half of the bed. He sat up straight, almost falling off of the broken bed. Dean looked around to see that the motel room was dusty, ransacked, and abandoned. Their bags were in the corner and Elena was nowhere to be seen.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

Dean walked to the window and glanced out to see that the street was devastated, building falling apart and graffiti everywhere as well as destroyed cars. He quickly grabbed his jacket that was still thrown over and shattered chair and ran out. When he got outside, it looked even worse on the ground. There was trash everywhere and stains on the ground that looked suspiciously like blood. He walked through the streets, trying to catch sight of anyone that he could. When he heard something like glass smashing, he walked into an alleyway to investigate. He caught sight of a little girl with ratty blonde hair and a ripped up teddy bear in her hand that was dragging on the ground. Dean approached her slowly and warily.

"Little girl?" She didn't respond and he sighed, raising his voice. "Little girl?"

She stopped suddenly but still didn't turn to face him.

"Are you hurt?" Dean asked.

Still no response.

"You know the not-talking thing is kind of creepy, right?"

The little girl turned around slowly and Dean took a step back when he saw her face. Blood dripped from her mouth and she had a crazed look in her eye. Suddenly she bent down and grasped a shard of glass, shrieking as she launched at him. Dean punched her out of instinct and she fell to the ground, unconscious. He stared around wildly before catching sight of a word painted on the wall in red spray paint. **CROATOAN**.

"Oh, shit." He cursed, turning around.

That was when Dean caught sight of the crowd of people walking towards him. They were probably attracted by the girl's shrieks. Dean backed away slowly before turning to run. They followed him as he bolted down a street, pushing his legs as quickly as they would go as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. When he saw a chain-linked fence, Dean's heart sank and he tried not to look back as he searched for a way out. A song began blasting around him and Dean ducked in time to hear the sound of shooting. He slid behind a car and looked up to see several tanks on the other side of the fence. Soldiers were shooting the people as the song played.

"Do you love me?" the singer belted.

Dean remained hidden, watching as they massacred the infected people.

"I can really move."

One by one, the people fell to the bullets as the soldiers jumped out of the tanks.

"I'm in the groove."

They approached with gunfire and Dean watched as blood sprayed and bodies fell.

"Do you love me?"

Slowly, he retreated back into an alley, not wanting to be mistaken for one of the infected.

"Do you love me now that I can dance? Dance..."

The song faded into the distance.

"Watch me now!"

An hour later, the soldiers were gone, having cleaned up all of the bodies. Dean made his way towards the fence, breaking through it to see a sign posted.

**CROATOAN**

**VIRUS**

**HOT ZONE**

**NO ENTRY**

**BY ORDER OF ACTING REGIONAL COMMAND**

**AUGUST 1, 2014**

**KANSAS CITY**

"August first, 2014." Dean breathed, confused.

It had to be angels, there was no other explanation.

* * *

As he drove down the highway, he switched the channels on the radio. All of them were static.

"That's never a good sign." Dean muttered.

"Croatoan pandemic reaches Australia."

Dean jumped, looking over with wide eyes to see Zachariah sitting there. He was reading from a newspaper.

"I thought I smelled your stink on this Back to the Future crap." Dean snapped, glaring at him.

Zachariah ignored him.

"President Palin defends bombing of Houston. Certainly a buyer's market in real estate. Let's see what's happening in sports. That's right… no more sports." The angel sighed, shaking his head. "Congress revoked the right to group assembly. What's left of Congress, that is. Hardly a quorum, if you ask me."

"How did you find me?" Dean demanded, knowing that his angelic imprints should have protected him.

If they had him here, what could they be doing to Elena? Was she somewhere in this insane future world?

"Afraid we had to tap some unorthodox resources of late… human informants." Zachariah said, sounding disgusted by the prospect. "We've been making inspirational visits to the fringier Christian groups. They've been given your image, told to keep an eye out."

Dean realized what he was saying.

"The Bible freak outside the motel… he, what, dropped a dime on us?"

"Onward, Christian soldiers." The angel said, smiling.

"Okay, well, good, great." Dean nodded, scowling at him. "You have had your jollies. Now send me back, you son of a bitch."

"Oh, you'll get back… all in good time. We want you to marinate a bit."

"Marinate?"

"Three days, Dean. Three days to see where this course of action takes you. And don't worry about Elena. We're taking good care of her."

Dean took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he questioned, referring to both pieces of information.

"It means that your choices have consequences. This is what happens to the world if you continue to say no to Michael. Have a little look-see. If you think that they have no consequence on your guardian, think again."

Dean wanted to demand more information but Zachariah disappeared in the next moment. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel, shaking his head.

* * *

When he reached the salvage yard, it didn't look good. Dean walked up to the door slowly, glancing around the trashed yard.

"Bobby? Bobby, I'm coming in!"

The house looked even worse, spider webs and dust everywhere.

"Oh, no." Dean said, catching sight of something.

He walked to the wheelchair, setting it upright. There were three bullet holes in the back and dried blood around them.

"Where is everybody, Bobby?" he whispered, glancing around.

Dean walked around the house a bit before remembering something. When he got to the fireplace, he opened the hidden compartment and found his father's journal. When he opened it, there were no new entries. There were just two photos. In the first one, Bobby was sitting in his wheelchair. There were three men that he didn't know standing behind him but to his right were Castiel and Elena. She was leaning into the angel and they were both holding machine guns. Behind them was a sign.

"Camp Chitaqua." Dean read off before switching to the next photo.

This time it was just Castiel and Elena. They weren't looking at the camera. They were sitting across a table from each other, both holding beers and laughing as if someone had just told a joke. It was strange. Elena always smiled but Castiel looked almost like a different person. Even in the faded photograph, Dean could see his eyes sparkling as he looked at Elena. One thing bothered him about the pictures. If this was the future, where was he?

* * *

Dean crept up to the sign from the first photo, glancing around. He ducked when he saw two men with machine guns patrolling the fence. When they were gone, he carefully climbed over the fence and dropped down on the other side. After only a few moments of walking, he caught sight of something that made his heart sink.

"Oh, baby, no." he whispered, approaching the car.

The Impala looked horrible, the hood smashed in and the inside torn apart.

"Oh, no, baby, what did they do to you?" Dean muttered.

He heard a crack behind him but barely had time to look around when the butt of a gun slammed across his head.

* * *

As Dean slowly came out of unconsciousness with a throbbing head, he immediately realized that he was unable to move far. He looked up to see that one of his hands was handcuffed to a ladder. When he glanced around, his eyes widened. An exact copy of himself was sitting in a chair cleaning a gun.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

The future Dean glanced up at him, narrowing his eyes.

"I should be asking that question, don't you think? In fact, why don't you give me one good reason why I shouldn't gank you right here and now?"

He pointed a shotgun at him and Dean shrugged nervously.

"Because you'd only be hurting yourself."

"Very funny." Future Dean said, nodding once as he put the gun down.

"Look, man… I'm no shapeshifter or demon or anything, okay?" he sighed.

"Yeah, I know. I did the drill while you were out. Silver, salt, holy water… nothing." His future self confirmed. "But you know what was funny? Was that you had every hidden lockpick, box cutter, and switchblade that I carry. Now, you want to explain that? Oh, and the, uh, resemblance, while you're at it?"

Dean thought for a moment, trying to figure out a way to explain everything.

"Zachariah." He said simply.

The face of his future self darkened slightly as he stood up.

"Come again?"

"I'm you from the tail end of 2009. Zach plucked me from my bed and threw me five years into the future." Dean said simply.

"Where is he? I want to talk to him." Future Dean demanded.

He shook his head.

"I don't know."

"Oh, you don't know." His other self said skeptically.

"No, I don't know. Look, I just want to get back to my own year, okay?" he said defensively.

"Okay. If you're me, then tell me something only I would know." Future Dean said, sitting down again.

Dean thought for several moments before smirking slightly.

"Rhonda Hurley. We were, uh, nineteen. She made us try on her panties. They were pink. And satiny. And you know what? We kind of liked it."

He nodded at himself, his mind whirling.

"Touché." Future Dean decided. "So, what, Zach zapped you up here to see how bad it gets?"

"I guess." Dean sighed, glancing around. "Croatoan virus, right? That's their endgame?"

His other self nodded once as he continued cleaning the gun.

"It's efficient, it's incurable, and it's scary as hell. Turns people into monsters." He answered. "Started hitting the major cities about two years ago. World really went in the crapper after that."

"What about Sam?" Dean asked.

Future Dean went still, not looking up at him.

"Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. From what I understand, Sam didn't make it." he said in an empty-sounding voice.

"You weren't with him?" he asked.

"No." he shook his head. "No, me and Sam, we haven't talked in… hell, five years."

"We never tried to find him?" Dean questioned, his eyes wide.

"We had other people to worry about." His other self shrugged.

Dean stared at him strangely, wondering why he was acting so weird in the future.

"What about Elena?" he asked.

"She's here. Second-in-command." Future Dean answered, finishing with the gun.

He stood, loading it with real bullets.

"And she was just okay with you and Sam not talking in five years?" Dean asked doubtfully.

"There's a lot she isn't okay with." Future Dean murmured, turning towards the door as he lifted a duffle bag onto his shoulder.

Dean caught sight of his thigh holster and the familiar gun that sat in it.

"Where you going?" he asked, leaning forward.

"I got to run an errand."

"Whoa. You're just gonna leave me here?" Dean demanded.

His future self turned back around.

"Yes." He nodded. "I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their head. The last thing they need to see is a fucked up version of The Parent Trap. So, yeah, you stay locked down."

"Okay. All right. Fine. But you don't have to cuff me, man." Dean said, trying to work with him.

Future Dean raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, come on. You don't trust yourself?"

"No." he said, chuckling humorlessly. "Absolutely not."

He turned to leave, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Dick." Dean muttered, glancing around.

That was when he noticed the nail sticking slightly out of the floorboards. He smiled slightly, reaching out to pry it loose.

* * *

Dean looked around the camp as he walked around, trying to find anything to help him figure out what the hell to do.

"Hey, Dean. You got a second?" a familiar voice said.

He whirled around to see Chuck walking towards him.

"No…" he said automatically before shaking his head. "… yes. Uh, I-I guess. Hi, Chuck."

"Hi." The prophet nodded at him. "So, uh, listen, we're pretty good on canned goods for now, but we're down to next to nothing on perishables and… and hygiene supplies. People are not going to be happy about this."

Dean stared at him for a moment, wondering what he was supposed to say.

"So, what do you think we should do?" Chuck asked, staring at him expectantly.

"I-I don't know. Maybe, uh, share? You know, like at a kibbutz." Dean suggested.

Suddenly the shorter male looked at him strangely.

"Wait a minute. Aren't you supposed to be out on a mission right now?"

He nodded quickly.

"Absolutely. And I will be." he said, starting to turn around.

"Uh-oh." Chuck said, his eyes widening at something over Dean's shoulder.

He turned around just in time to dart away from the fist flying at his face.

"Whoa! Jeez!" Dean yelled, looking up in time to see the familiar dark hair thrown up into a messy ponytail. "Easy!"

She glared at him, fury in her eyes. Dean ducked behind Chuck, not liking the focused anger exuding from her. He'd never seen her quite this angry.

"Elena?" Dean said warily.

Chuck looked back at him with shock before shaking his head like he would rather be anywhere else. She stared at him with disbelief before taking a step forward.

"You spent the night in Jane's cabin last night, didn't you?" she demanded, spitting out the words.

Dean suddenly understood her words

"Uh, what? I didn't. I wouldn't… did I?"

Chuck nodded at him and his own eyes widened. Was his future self really such a dick that he actually cheated on Elena? Dean never imagined himself doing that. He was a lot of things but a cheater wasn't one of them.

"Hi." Chuck said nervously.

He raised his hand as her eyes flickered to him. She didn't say a word to him. Dean glanced at the gun holstered at her hip and she scoffed.

"You would be lucky if I shot you, Dean Winchester!" Elena hissed at him.

He grimaced at her, wanting to apologize for whatever he did.

"Oh, jeez. I'm getting busted for stuff I haven't even done yet." He muttered, shaking his head.

"What?" Chuck asked as Elena stared at him strangely.

"Uh, never mind." Dean sighed, glancing up at her.

She turned to walk off, her jaw still set furiously.

"Is... Cas still here?" Dean called out.

Elena turned back around slowly, staring at him.

"Yeah. I don't think Cas is going anywhere." Chuck said, sounding awkward.

"He can't go anywhere." Elena said in a harsh tone of voice.

"Where's his, uh… cabin?" he said.

She rolled her eyes, turning to walk off.

"You're supposed to follow her." Chuck said, still staring at him strangely.

Dean took off, not wanting to risk her anger again. As they walked, she kept shooting him strange looks.

"I thought you'd found a foolproof way to tell us apart."

He looked back at her strangely.

"What?"

Her eyes narrowed further and she looked even more suspicious. As they approached a cabin, Dean heard a familiar voice and he glanced over at the brunette. She waved him forward, looking as though she was anticipating something. What he saw as he walked in shocked him. Castiel was sitting in the middle off the room, a small group of women in a circle with him. Sitting in the middle of the group right in front of the angel was a very familiar face. Her eyes were closed and she was concentrating on something. Dean glanced back around, looking at the other twin with shock. Then something occurred to him and he took a deep breath as he realized what was going on. A smirk formed on Katherine's face and she winked at him.

Dean found that he could tell the difference between them and he wondered how the hell he hadn't noticed it before. Elena's head snapped up and her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of him. Castiel continued speaking with his own eyes closed, not noticing Dean and Katherine at the doorway. Elena's eyes fluttered closed again and she took a deep breath.

"So, in this way. We're each a fragment of total perception… just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind." Castiel said.

Elena lifted her hand at the same time that Castiel did.

"Now, the key to this total, shared perception… it's, um, it's surprisingly physical." Castiel explained.

Their other hands lifted and they were inches apart, their palms facing each other as they both breathed evenly.

"And when you reach that connection… that perception."

Their hands came together and touched lightly.

"You can share much more than just touch." Castiel said.

A stillness settled over the room as if a spell had fallen over everyone. Two thin chains were lying on the ground between Elena and Castiel. One was gold and the other was silver. They lifted at the same time as Elena and Castiel opened their eyes. Dean fought back a startled noise when he saw the electric blue color of Elena's eyes. The chains floated towards each other, slowly entwining until they were completely touching. Then the ends twisted towards each other and touched, melding together. Elena smiled slightly as it floated back down to the ground, settling there in a perfect circle. Castiel nodded as her eyes returned back to normal.

"Now, not all of you will be able to reach this level of shared perception but there are still some things that we can do to reach higher."

Cas glanced over, spotting Dean and Katherine.

"Oh. Excuse me, ladies." He said, his hands moving away from Elena's.

They dropped and she looked over at Dean with a scrutinizing look that made him think he was under a microscope.

"I think we need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not go get washed up for the orgy?"

Dean's eyes widened in surprise as the women all stood and filed out of the room.

"You're all so beautiful." Castiel said, smiling at them.

He stood first, stretching out his back as Elena climbed to her feet.

"What are you, a hippie?" Dean asked, unable to resist the question before he delved into what the hell was going on in this place.

"I thought you'd gotten over trying to label me." Castiel sighed.

Elena narrowed her eyes at him before realization struck her.

"Cas, look at him." she said, stepping up next to him.

Castiel glanced around at him and his eyes widened.

"Whoa. Strange." he commented.

"What?" Dean asked, glancing between them.

"You... are not you." Elena said warily.

"Not now you, anyway." Castiel agreed.

"Yeah. Yes, exactly." he sighed with relief, nodding as he stepped forward.

They both took a step back, still looking wary.

"What year are you from?" Elena demanded.

Katherine walked past them, looking amused as she lounged on Castiel's bed.

"2009." Dean answered, staring between them as he waited for an explanation as to why Elena's evil vampiric doppelganger ancestor was here.

"Who did this to you? Is it Zachariah?" Castiel asked, looking at him strangely.

"Yes."

"Interesting." He commented, turning away.

Elena still stared at him strangely, as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Oh, yeah, it's fucking fascinating." Dean snapped, frustrated. "What the hell is going on here?"

They all stared at him as if they had no idea what he was talking about.

"You know… camp grounds… hippie Cas… Chuck's talking toilet paper… oh yeah and her!" Dean listed, pointing at Katherine. "I thought you hated her."

He was focused on Elena now. Katherine let out a laugh.

"Oh that's old news." She said.

Elena hopped up on the desk, tilting her head to the side slightly.

"We're the best of friends now. Ever since…"

"Katherine." Elena said in a warning voice, cutting her off.

Dean stared between them, his head still hurting from the blow that he gave himself.

"Since what?" he asked.

"Nothing." Elena said, looking slightly sad but more defensive.

Dean wanted to push it but more than anything, he was ready to get out of this freaky reality.

"Whatever." He sighed, turning to Castiel. "Why don't you strap on your angel wings and fly me back to my page on the calendar?"

He let out a humorless chuckle, crossing to Elena. Dean watched as he turned around and she spread her legs, allowing him to fall between them and settle back against her chest. Her chin rested on his shoulder.

"I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I'm sorry, no dice." Castiel said, shrugging.

"What, are you stoned?" Dean asked, getting even more freaked out.

"Generally, yeah." Katherine and Elena answered at the same time.

Cas nodded in agreement.

"What happened to you? All of you?" he demanded, all of this making his head spin.

Elena looked down and Katherine remained silent, leaving Castiel to answer.

"Life."

Dean shook his head, not wanting to have any more strange things thrown at him in this future.

"Well I need to get out of here somehow."

"You need to get back to your cabin." Elena said. "Well… your future cabin. I'm guessing you were supposed to be locked in there and you didn't really agree with that."

Dean stared at her strangely before nodding once.

"Yeah." He said. "How'd you know?"

She smiled sadly, pushing Castiel forward before sliding off of the desk.

"I know you."

Dean followed her out onto the porch but didn't make it much further before stopping.

"What the hell happened to me?"

Elena froze, sighing before turning back to him. She reached up to twist the pendent around her neck.

"You got cold. This entire shitstorm hit and all you could think about was taking down the devil. It's all you care about anymore." she explained.

"All I care about?" Dean asked, doubtful.

Elena stared at him for a moment before stepping forward. Her hand went to his face and she stroked it gently. Dean's eyes fluttered closed at the feeling and he sighed slightly.

"I forgot how warm you used to be." she said quietly.

His eyes flickered open and he stared at her with surprise.

"What was the deal with that chain thing? And your eyes?" Dean asked, unable to hold back his curiosity.

Elena shook her head, stepping away.

"If I tell you, that would be cheating. I have to figure it out on my own." she said, turning away.

Dean followed her off of the cabin steps, not wanting to give up so easily.

"What's the deal with you and Katherine?" he questioned.

"There is a lack of people left in the world we can count on, Dean." Elena answered, walking towards the small dirt road. "We can't pick and choose our friends anymore."

He frowned at her.

"Yeah but you hate her. What changed?"

Elena sighed, shaking her head before stopping once more.

"Virginia was one of the first places to be bombed when the virus hit." She said. "We lost everyone, so we gravitated towards each other. Somehow when you're fighting the apocalypse, old grudges slip away and you forget why you even hated the person."

Dean stared at her sadly.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly.

Elena nodded, looking as though she'd heard the words before.

"I know you are."

* * *

They were walking for a few more minutes before they heard cars behind them. Elena cursed loudly and grabbed Dean, yanking him back into the shadow of the trees. The two watched as a car and a jeep pulled up. Dean and another soldier climbed out of the jeep. When his future self reached into the back, Dean watched as he pulled out two beers and tossed one to the other soldier. They raised them and nodded before opening them to drink. As the other man walked away, Dean watched with shock as his future self pulled out a gun. Before he knew it, he was running out.

"Hey! Watch out!"

The soldier turned in time for Future Dean to shoot him right between the eyes. His body thumped to the ground as the others glanced between him and his future self with wide eyes. Elena moved to stand at his side, looking at him with a frustrated expression. Future Dean sighed heavily, shaking his head.

"Dammit."

He turned to address the soldiers who weren't sure what to do.

"I'm not gonna lie to you. Me and him…" Future Dean gestured between them. "… it's a pretty messed-up situation we got going. But believe me, when you need to know something, you will know it. Until then, we all have work to do."

They dispersed, walking off as they muttered to himself. Dean saw that his future self was ready to yell when Elena walked up and punched him across the face.

"What the fuck?" Future Dean demanded.

"You know why." Elena snapped, pointing back at Dean. "You knew about him and you failed to tell me? I'm not your grunt, Dean. I'm not on a need to know basis. When you know something, I know something."

She shoved him backwards, fury in her eyes.

"All right." he snapped, glaring back at her.

Elena watched as he walked towards Dean and grabbed his arm.

"Come with us if you want to know everything." Future Dean growled, dragging Dean towards his cabin.

Elena followed them, still wearing an angry look. Once they reached the cabin, Future Dean shoved him in without even trying to be gentle.

"What the hell was that?" he yelled.

"What the hell was that?" Dean fired back. "You just shot a guy in cold blood."

Future Dean stared at him as Elena shut the door.

"We were in an open quarantine zone. Got ambushed by some Croats on the way out."

Dean stared at him cluelessly, not understanding.

"Croats. Croatoans." He said, exasperated. "One of them infected Yeager."

"How do you know?" Dean asked.

"Cause after a few years of this, I know." Future Dean sighed, putting down the duffle bag on his shoulder. "I started seeing symptoms about a half an hour ago. Wasn't going to be long before he flipped. I didn't see the point in troubling a good man with bad news."

Elena glanced down at her feet and Dean saw that she wasn't surprised.

"Troubling a good man? You just blew him away in front of your own people." He said. "Don't you think that freaked them out a little bit?"

Future Dean scoffed, shaking his head.

"It's 2014. Plugging some Croat, it's called commonplace." He said simply. "Trading words with my fucking clone… that might have freaked them out a little."

Dean took a deep breath.

"All right, look…" he said, holding up his hands.

"No, you look." his future self snapped, glaring at him. "This isn't your time. It's mine. You don't make the decisions. I do. So, when I say stay in, you stay in."

Dean glanced at Elena and she shook her head, telling him that his future self was right.

"All right, man. I'm sorry. Look, I-I'm not trying to mess you… me… us up here." Dean said, his body relaxing as he tried to figure out a way to talk to himself without wanting to punch himself.

"I know." Future Dean nodded.

He poured out three glasses of whiskey, handing one to Elena. She took it, her eyes still slightly hostile.

"It's just been a really wacky weekend." Dean said, glancing between them.

"Tell me about it." his future self nodded as they drank.

Several minutes later, Elena looked at the duffle bag.

"The mission?" she asked.

Future Dean nodded once and she looked slightly relieved.

"What was it?" Dean questioned.

His lookalike pulled a gun out of the duffle bag after unzipping it.

"The Colt?" Dean said, standing up straighter.

"The Colt." His other self nodded.

Elena reached out and he handed it to her, a flash of something going through his eyes as she inspected it.

"Where was it?" Dean asked.

"Everywhere. They've been moving it around. Took me…" Elena's eyes flashed up to his, annoyance in them. "… us… five years, but we finally got it. And tonight… tonight, I'm gonna kill the devil."

Dean glanced between them with wide eyes as he tried to absorb what they were saying.

* * *

"So, that's it? That's the Colt?" Katherine asked, looking at the gun that sat in the middle of the table.

They were in Dean's cabin, talking about the mission they were about to go on.

"If anything can kill Lucifer, this is it." Future Dean nodded.

"That's great, Dean. Really good work." Elena snapped, glaring between him and the gun.

"Are you okay?" he asked, squinting at her.

Dean leaned forward, raising an eyebrow at his future self.

"Oh, we were in, uh, Jane's cabin last night." He said, nodding at him.

Elena's eyes flashed angrily at the mention as Katherine shook her head and Castiel stared away from them.

"You want to shut up?" Future Dean snapped.

"How do we find him?" Katherine asked. "The big bad?"

"We don't have to find Lucifer. We know where he is." Future Dean said. "The demon that we caught last week, he was one of the big guy's entourage. He knew."

"So, a demon tells you where Satan's gonna be, and you just believe it?" Katherine scoffed.

"Oh, trust me, he wasn't lying." he said confidently as Elena's eyes narrowed more.

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him murderously.

"And you know this how?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"Our fearless leader, I'm afraid, is all too well schooled in the art of getting to the truth." Castiel sighed, looking up at Future Dean.

"Torture?" Dean realized. "Oh, so, we're… we're torturing again."

Their eyes met and his future self glared at him.

"No, that's… that's good. Classy."

Castiel laughed and Future Dean scowled in his direction.

"What? I like past you." he shrugged.

Elena moved forward, leaning over Castiel. She whispered something in his ear and he let out a chuckle. Dean watched with squinting eyes as she wrapped her arm around his neck loosely and he leaned back into her. He had to wonder whether there was something going on there but it was all too strange to think about.

"Lucifer is here. Now." Future Dean said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He didn't seem surprised or bothered by Castiel and Elena's closeness.

"I know the block and I know the building."

They all leaned forward to look at the map that he laid out.

"Oh, good… it's right in the middle of a hot zone." Castiel commented, nodding.

"Crawling with Croats, yeah." Future Dean said, looking at him. "You saying my plan is reckless?"

""Are you saying we, uh, walk in straight up the driveway, past all the demons and the Croats, and we shoot the devil?" Cas fired back.

He nodded once.

"Okay, if you don't like, uh, 'reckless', I could use 'insouciant', maybe." Castiel shrugged.

Future Dean stared at him, tired of his mocking.

"Are you coming?"

Castiel sighed, his hand coming up to touch Elena's where it was still hanging around his neck.

"Of course." He nodded, glancing at Dean. "But why is he? I mean, he's you five years ago. If something happens to him, you're gone, right?"

"He's coming." Future Dean said without leaving room for argument.

"Okay. Well, uh. I'll get the grunts moving." Castiel sighed.

Elena stepped back as he stood up.

"We're loaded and on the road by midnight." Dean instructed.

"All righty."

He turned to walk off and they watched as Katherine followed.

"Lena?" Cas said, glancing back at her.

She stared between the Deans before nodding, turning to leave as well.

"Why are you taking me?" Dean questioned.

"Relax. You'll be fine." His future self said. "Zach's looking after you, right?"

He rolled up the map as Dean watched.

"No, that's not what I mean. I want to know what's going on." he said, knowing there was something that he wasn't being told.

"Yeah, okay. You're coming because I want you to see something." Future Dean said, turning back to face him. "I want you to see our brother."

Dean frowned at him.

"Sam? I thought he was dead."

"Sam didn't die in Detroit. He said 'yes'." The other Dean said, looking emotionless as he spoke.

There was a long silence as Dean tried to figure out what it meant.

"Wait. You mean…"

"That's right." Future Dean nodded. "The big 'yes'. To the devil. Lucifer's wearing him to the prom."

Dean frowned, remembering himself saying those exact words just hours before.

"Why would he do that?"

"Wish I knew. But now we don't have a choice. It's in him, and it's not getting out. And we've got to kill him, Dean. And you need to see it… the whole damn thing, how bad it gets… so you can do it different." Future Dean said.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

His future self glanced up at him.

"Zach said he was going to bring you back, right? To '09?"

He nodded once.

"Well, when you get back home… you say 'yes'. You hear me? Say 'yes' to Michael." Future Dean instructed.

Dean stared at him with wide eyes.

"That's crazy. If I let him in, then Michael fights the devil. The battle's going to torch half the planet." He argued.

"Look around you, man. Half the planet's better than no planet, which is what we have now. If I could do it over again, I'd say 'yes' in a heartbeat." Future Dean tried to convince him.

"So why don't you?" Dean demanded.

He shook his head, frustration in his eyes.

"I've tried! I've shouted 'yes' till I was blue in the face! The angels aren't listening!" he ranted. "They just… left… gave up! It's too late for me, but for you…"

"Oh, no. There's got to be another way." Dean refused.

His future self nodded once.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I was cocky. Never actually thought I'd lose." He let out a scoff. "But I was wrong. Dean. I was wrong. I'm begging you. Say yes."

There was a pause as they stared at each other.

"But you won't. Cause I didn't." Future Dean realized. "Because that's just not us, is it?"

* * *

Dean walked through the camp, glancing around with his hands shoved in his pockets. The others were avoiding him, all acting as though he was a bad omen there to kill them all. When he caught sight of a familiar face, he walked up to her.

"I'm not Elena." Katherine said simply.

"I know." He said, nodding as he glanced down at his shoes.

She looked at him, tilting her head to the side.

"It's really bothering you, isn't it? How much of an asshole you are now?"

Dean looked up at her with surprise.

"You're easy to read." The vampire said, looking him up and down. "Come on."

He followed her without question back to Dean's cabin.

"Look."

She pointed in and he saw something that he didn't expect after a day full of disappointments. Elena and Future Dean were on the bed. She was sitting up and he was lying down, his head in her lap. Elena was stroking his hair softly, murmuring words that he couldn't decipher. His future self had his eyes closed and he was talking to her as well. They looked more normal, more like he expected.

"Treasure that sight." Katherine said, nodding at him. "It's probably the only glimpse of your real self that you'll see."

* * *

They walked through the abandoned city, their guns at the ready as they looked around for any sign of movement. Elena was walking beside Future Dean and Castiel was next to her with Katherine just behind them next to Dean. It was almost hard to tell the doppelgangers apart because their hair was similar in looks, wavy and flowing over their shoulders. The only thing that Dean could use without them speaking was the ring that was on Elena's finger. He'd seen her wear it before. She wore no other jewelry except for the pendent around her neck. Dean wondered why she was wearing jewelry at all. It didn't seem like a time in which women would be too worried about how they looked.

When they reached a broken down building, they all huddled beside cars as they looked up into the building. Future Dean handed off his binoculars to Elena and she peered up.

"There. Second-floor window." he said, pointing.

She nodded once.

"We go in there." Future Dean instructed.

"You sure about this?" Katherine asked, glancing at him.

"They'll never see us coming. Trust me." he assured them. "Now, weapons check. We're on the move in five."

The others in their group that Dean didn't know all checked on their weapons to make sure they were in working order. Dean stared around at them, wondering how they didn't see what he saw.

"Hey, uh, me." he said, looking at his future self. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

They went to the side and he stared at him.

"Tell me what's going on." Dean demanded.

"What?" Future Dean questioned.

"I know you. You're lying to these people and to me."

"Is that so." he countered, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. See, I know your lying expressions. I've seen them in the mirror. Now, there's something you're not telling us." Dean said, getting frustrated with himself.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Future Dean shrugged.

"Oh, really? Well, I don't seem to be the only member of your posse with some questions, so, uh, maybe I'll just take my doubts over to them."

They looked over to see Elena and Castiel murmuring low under their breath, both with wary expressions. Dean stared towards them.

"Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait." Future Dean sighed, pulling him back.

"What?" Dean demanded.

"Take a look around you, man. This place should be white-hot with Croats. Where are they?" he hissed, gesturing around.

Dean noticed it, realizing what was going.

"They cleared a path for us. Which means that this is…"

"A trap. Exactly." Future Dean agreed.

"Well, then we can't go through the front." Dean said.

"Oh, we're not. They are." He said, nodding at the others. "They're the decoys. You, me, and Elena, we're going in through the back."

"You mean you're gonna feed your friends into a meat grinder? Cas, too? You want to use their deaths as a diversion?" Dean demanded, glaring at him.

Future Dean looked away from him, taking a deep breath.

"Oh, man, something is broken in you." Dean said, shaking his head. "You're making decisions that I would never make. I wouldn't sacrifice my friends."

"You're right." he said, looking back at him. "You wouldn't. It's one of the main reasons we're in this mess, actually."

"These people count on you. They trust you." he tried to convince his lookalike.

"They trust me to kill the devil and to save the world and that's exactly what I'm gonna do." Future Dean said, sounding resolved.

"No. Not like this, you're not." Dean said, refusing to allow this to happen. "I'm not gonna let you."

His future self raised his eyebrow at him.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah." Dean nodded.

There was a pause and suddenly he was hit over the head with a gun again.

* * *

When he woke up, he was lying on the ground. Dean groaned, gunfire echoing in the building as he stood up. He staggered towards it, going around the back where he knew that his future self had to be. When he saw who was in the garden, he stopped short and his eyes widened. Elena was lying on the ground, her lifeless eyes staring up at the sky. His future self was beside her, sprawled out with a white shoe on his throat. The Colt was lying several feet away. When the foot shifted, Dean heard a sickening crack and his lookalike was dead, staring out at him with glassy eyes. When the remaining being lifted his head, he turned and smiled slightly. Dean shook his head, unable to believe it. It was his brother but it wasn't. The stark white suit looked strange on Sam. His eyes were cold and emotionless.

"Oh. Hello, Dean." Lucifer said. "Aren't you a surprise."

Lightning flashed and the sound of thunder filled the air. Suddenly Lucifer was no longer in front of him.

"You've come a long way to see this, haven't you?"

Dean whirled around to see him standing behind him, looking vaguely curious.

"Well, go ahead. Kill me." Dean said, glaring at him.

He hated seeing this. He hated the son of a bitch using his brother's voice to communicate.

"Kill you?"

Lucifer looked past him at the corpse of his future self.

"Don't you think that would be a little... redundant?"

Dean felt fury rising within him as he glanced back at the two bodies. Something seemed off about it but Dean couldn't figure out what it was. He turned back, glaring at the devil once more.

"I'm sorry. It must be painful, speaking to me in this… shape." Lucifer sighed. "But it had to be your brother. It had to be."

He reached for Dean's shoulder and he jerked away from me. If he hadn't known better, he might have thought that there was sadness in his eyes.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Dean." Lucifer said, looking at him. "What do you think I'm going to do?"

Dean watched as he walked to a rose bush, stroking his fingers over the petal of a red rose.

"I don't know. Maybe deep-fry the planet?" Dean snapped.

Lucifer turned back towards him, looking confused.

"Why? Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing?" he breathed. "Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God."

Dean didn't answer, just staring at him.

"You ever hear the story of how I fell from grace?" he asked.

"Oh, good God, you're not gonna tell me a bedtime story, are you? My stomach's almost out of bile." Dean said, shaking his head.

Lucifer continued as if he hadn't heard him.

"You know why God cast me down?" he said. "Because I loved him. More than anything. And then God created..."

Lucifer smirked, looking Dean up and down.

"You. The little...hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you… to love you, more than him. And I said, 'Father, I can't.' I said, 'These human beings are flawed, murderous.'" Lucifer shook his head. "And for that, God had Michael cast me into hell. Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime?"

Dean swallowed hard, not wanting to hear any of this. He wished that Zach would just come and whisk him away.

"Especially, when I was right? Look at what six billion of you have done to this thing, and how many of you blame me for it."

"You're not fooling me, you know that? With this sympathy-for-the-devil crap. I know what you are." Dean snapped.

Lucifer tilted his head to the side.

"What am I?"

"You're the same thing, only bigger. The same brand of cockroach I've been squashing my whole life." he said, looking at the angel with disgust. "An ugly, evil, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of crap. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego."

Lucifer smiled, nodding at him.

"I like you, Dean. I get what the other angels see in you." his smile faded as he took a step backwards. "Goodbye. We'll meet again soon."

Lucifer turned to walk away but Dean couldn't let him go. Something told him to keep him there, to distract him. His eyes flickered back to Elena and he frowned, noticing something. The ring was wrong.

* * *

Elena immediately sensed something was wrong as soon as she woke up. She sat up, looking around to see a shadowed figure a few feet away from the bed.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, reaching for Dean.

He wasn't there. Her eyes widened in panic as the person stepped forward. Elena gasped when she saw their face.

"Katherine?" she demanded.

The lookalike shook her head, walking to sit on the bed very close to her.

"I'm you." she said. "From 2014. That's where Dean is right now. The angels sent him there to see something. I just had to come back to tell you something."

Elena stared at herself with shock, shaking her head.

"This is impossible."

Her future self smiled slightly.

"After all you've seen, you can still say that?"

She pulled a chain out of her shirt and showed it to Elena. It was familiar, too familiar.

"I just came to tell you something. No matter what the angels threaten you with, no matter what they tell you, do not give in. Do not allow Dean to say yes to Michael. They will throw threats at you and you will survive through whatever they do. I promise you, it will be all right. Just stay strong."

Elena watched with wide eyes as she stood up.

"How did you get here?" she asked.

Her future self just smiled and winked before disappearing without another sound.

* * *

"You better kill me now!" Dean called, looking back up at Lucifer.

The angel turned back.

"Pardon?"

"You better kill me now. Or I swear, I will find a way to kill you. And I won't stop." Dean growled.

"I know you won't. I know you won't say yes to Michael, either. And I know you won't kill Sam." Lucifer agreed, nodding.  
"Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up… here. I win. So, I win."

"You're wrong." A voice said.

Lucifer whirled around and they both stared in shock as Elena walked forward. Castiel was just behind her, bloodstains on his clothing but still alive. When she drove a silver blade into Lucifer's stomach, the angel gasped.

"As long as I am around, you will not win." Elena said, glaring down at him as he fell to his knees. "As long as I'm here, you will never get a hold of these boys."

He stared at her in shock before looking at the lookalike he'd killed.

"Meet my ancestor, Katerina Petrova." Elena said.

Katherine stood up, shaking out her hair before picking at the jacket that she was wearing.

"I hate your clothes." She complained.

Elena stared at her, shaking her head. Then she looked back down at the devil.

"You think that you set a trap for us but it was a trap for you all along. We didn't come to kill you. We came to capture you."

She pressed her fingers to his forehead and he disappeared without saying another word. Dean stared with shock as Elena walked to Future Dean and bent down, brushing her hand over his cheek. White light flowed out of her hand and into his body. He sat up, gasping for breath as he looked around.

"Did it work?" Future Dean asked, taking Elena's hand to stand up.

She nodded.

"What the hell?" Dean asked, shocked.

They turned back to look at him.

"I'm sorry, Dean. We needed you to be a distraction and we couldn't have you giving anything away." Elena said apologetically.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, confused.

Elena looked at Future Dean hesitantly.

"_What the hell is this?" Katherine said, looking in the cabin where the captive was unconscious and handcuffed to a ladder._

"_The angels, no doubt." Dean said, his arms crossed over his chest._

_Castiel and Elena nodded in agreement._

"_It can't be a coincidence that they send past you here just in time for us to go after Lucifer." Elena said, stepping forward. "If we're right about the time period, this will be when they're trying to get you to say yes to Michael. If they show him what is going on with Sam, he'll be hopeless. He'll try to fix it however he can so that it doesn't happen. They want him to say yes."_

"_And if he says yes…" Castiel began._

"… _then everything will change. All of this work to get to him will never happen. If he says yes, they will have the final battle."_

_Dean looked at her._

"_I didn't say yes before." he said._

"_You didn't have this experience." She reminded him._

_He sighed, looking back at himself._

"_So what?" Katherine asked._

_Elena took a deep breath, looking at Dean._

"_We make him believe what the angels want. We show him Sam and we tell him how everything is happening." He said. "He'll come along with us and he'll help sell it. Then we'll be able to capture him."_

"_So we tell him nothing? We let him believe that we're going to kill Lucifer and Sam?" Elena asked._

_Dean looked back at her, nodding slowly._

"_It is going to take you looking like a cold-hearted bastard to sell this to yourself." Castiel warned him._

"_Then I'll act like a cold-hearted bastard." He agreed. "But the rest of you have to go along with it. Treat me like I am a dick. He'll… I'll see right through it if you don't."_

_Elena moved forward, leaning up to kiss him deeply._

"_We'll get him back, Dean." She whispered, stroking his hair._

_He nodded, burying his face in her shirt for a few moments. Then they all stepped away, scattering to play their parts convincingly._

"_Oh and Cas?" Dean said, looking back at him._

_They all glanced at him._

"_As far as he's… I'm concerned… you're powerless."_

_Castiel nodded once, saluting to him._

"_You got it, boss." He said, taking Elena's hand as they turned to walk back to his cabin._

"You planned this all along." Dean breathed, looking up at them. "You were never going to kill Sam."

"Of course not." Elena said, shaking her head. "We're family."

She let go of Future Dean's hand and walked to him, putting her hand up on his cheek. He saw the five years of stress and sadness in her eyes but he also saw hope.

"Stand strong, love." Elena whispered.

He leaned his head into her hand, his eyes fluttering closed.

"There will be hard times and there will be days you want to give up on everything, including me. I know that it will seem hopeless but remember this. Remember us. We will never give up on family, no matter what. Even if we have to make sacrifices of our own to make it happen."

Dean swallowed hard as his eyes opened. She smiled gently, leaning up to kiss his forehead.

"Now go back." she murmured, nodding at him. "I'm waiting for you."

She put her hand to his forehead and he felt himself whisked away.

* * *

When he stopped, Dean looked around to see that he was back in the motel room in Kansas City. It was no longer destroyed.

"Dean!"

Elena, his Elena, darted off of the bed and into his arms, pulling him close.

"The future sucks, kind of." He muttered, burying his face in her hair.

She sighed, shaking her head as she looked up at him.

"We'll change it." she promised.

They heard a familiar sound and both turned with wide eyes to see Zachariah standing there.

"Oh, well, if it isn't the ghost of Christmas screw you." Dean snapped, taking Elena's hand.

"Enough. Dean, enough." the angel sighed, walking forward.

They both took a few steps away from him.

"You saw it, right? You saw what happens." Zachariah said, his eyes staring straight at Dean. "You're the only person who can prove the devil wrong. Just say yes."

Dean tilted his head to the side. Zachariah must have not heard the entire exchange.

"How do I know that this whole thing isn't one of your tricks? Huh? Some angel hocus-pocus?" he questioned, playing along.

"The time for tricks is over. Give yourself to Michael. Say yes and we can strike. Before Lucifer gets to Sam. Before billions die." He tried to convince him.

Elena looked up at Dean with wide eyes, wondering if he would take the deal. He stared down at her for a moment before looking up at the angel.

"Nah."

Zachariah stared at him for a moment.

"Nah? You telling me you haven't learned your lesson?" he demanded.

"Oh, I've learned a lesson, all right." Dean nodded, smirking at him. "Just not the one you wanted to teach."

"Well, I'll just have to teach it again!" Zachariah yelled. "Because I got you two now, and I'm never letting you…"

They both disappeared from the room, their bags gone as well. It was like they were never there. Zachariah turned and looked out at the street to see that the Impala had disappeared as well.

"Son of a..."

* * *

Elena and Dean stared around the dark parking lot with wide eyes. When they saw Castiel standing beside the Impala, they both breathed sighs of relief.

"That's pretty nice timing, Cas."

"We had an appointment." Castiel nodded at them, smiling slightly.

Elena grinned at him as Dean leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't ever change." He sighed.

Castiel nodded at him as he drew away and took Elena's hand once more.

"How did Zachariah find you?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"Long story. Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay?" Dean said, shaking his head.

They watched as he pulled out his phone.

"What are you doing?" Elena asked as he dialed.

"Something I should have done in the first place." Dean said, staring at her.

* * *

Dean and Elena were waiting as they watched another car drive underneath the bridge. When Sam got out, Elena remained sitting on the Impala hood, allowing Dean to walk to him. He held the demon-killing knife in his hand.

"Sam." Dean nodded at him.

The younger brother looked at the knife nervously. Dean handed it over to him, handle first.

"If you're serious and you want back in... you should hang on to this." he said, nodding at Sam to take it. "I'm sure you're rusty."

Sam took the knife, nodding. He couldn't quite meet his brother's eyes.

"Look, man, I'm sorry. I don't know. I'm... whatever I need to be." Dean sighed, shaking his head. "But I was, uh… wrong."

Sam glanced up at him, a spark of hope in his eyes.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked.

"Long story." Dean said, shrugging. "The point is... maybe we are each other's Achilles heel. Maybe they'll find a way to use us against each other, I don't know. I just know we're all we've got."

Dean gestured between the three of them.

"More than that. We keep each other human."

Sam smiled at him, looking relieved.

"Thank you. Really." He breathed. "Thank you. I won't let you down."

"Oh, I know it. I mean, you are the second-best hunter on the planet."

"Hey!" Elena protested, sliding off of the hood of the car.

She walked over to Sam with a grin. Elena threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He hugged back with enthusiasm, lifting her off of the ground as she laughed gleefully. When he set her back down, Elena beamed up at him and he smiled back.

"So, what do we do now?" she asked, looking over at Dean.

"We make our own future." He answered after a moment of thinking.

Sam sighed, nodding as they turned towards the Impala.

"Guess we have no choice." He said.

As they walked towards the car, Elena took a deep breath.

"I don't know about you two, but I am starving. There's a diner we passed that looked delicious."

Both brothers let out similar noises of agreement, nodding as they climbed into the Impala.

* * *

**I hope you liked it!**

**Next: Elena tries to play peacemaker with Dean and Sam, who are still having problems. When they deal with a string of murders by supposed famous people, they have to follow the strange trail to find out what they're dealing with.**


	6. She Just Blows My Mind

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Chapter Title: She's a Genius - Jet**

**1. All right, so I've written a lot of dark and dreary stuff lately. Not quite dark so much as serious. I miss the fun chapters. So I am going to try to make this chapter as fun as possible. It'll still have serious parts because it's still the apocalypse but it'll have funny parts too. Just like in the beginning.**

**2. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**3. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

"Shit! Shit shit shit! Shit!" she repeated as she pumped her legs as fast as she could.

The sirens were getting closer and she ducked into an alleyway. She heard the car screech to a stop and the men began pursuing her on foot. They were no match for her sprint as the police officers were middle aged men. But, as she ran out of the other end, another cop car screeched to a stop in front of her as she attempted to cross the street.

"Fuck!" she shouted, hesitating before attempting to dart around the car.

The officer scrambled out of the front seat and snagged her arm before she could get away. She struggled with him for a moment before he managed to turn her and press her against the car, yanking her arms behind her back.

"Olivia Fisher, if that's even your real name… you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…" the cop began to say as he clapped the cold handcuffs on her wrist.

Elena bit her lip and rolled her eyes as the police officer pulled her away from the car and shoved her non-too-gently into the backseat. She sighed as she leaned her head back, struggling with the bobby pin that was attached to her sleeve.

"Whenever you're ready, boys." She grumbled, wondering why the hell it was taking them so long.

* * *

**TWO DAYS EARLIER**

Elena was reading the file with wide eyes as they sped down the road towards the next case. It had been two weeks since they reunited with Sam. In her mind, she continued to count down. She had sixty-six days until Zachariah's offer ended. The words of her future self and the presence of Sam and Dean at her side were the only things that kept her going.

"So…" she let out a slight laugh, shaking her head.

"… what's with this job?" Sam finished for her.

"Yeah." She nodded, closing the file to look up at the boys at the front.

"Dude suffers a head-on collision in a parked car? I'd say that's worth checking out." Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, definitely, but… we got bigger problems, don't you think?" Sam asked, looking between them.

"I'm sure the apocalypse will still be there when we get back." Elena shrugged.

She and Dean had agreed to do a different case so that they would stop going insane with their intent search for the Colt.

"Right, yeah, but I mean, if… if the Colt is really out there somewhere…"

"Hey, we've been looking for two weeks, we got bupkis." Dean cut him off.

"Okay. But Dean... I mean, if we're gonna… ice the Devil…" Even Sam sounded skeptical as he said it.

"This is what we're doing! Okay? End of discussion." Dean snapped and Elena sighed, looking out the window.

Sam looked away as well as Dean's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"It's just that this is our first real case, back at it all together. You know, I, I think we ought to ease into it, put the training wheels back on." Dean suggested.

"So you think I need training wheels." Sam scoffed, looking over at him as Elena buried her face in her hands.

This was how it had been ever since they came back together. The brothers were constantly fighting no matter what Elena said to try to get them to shut up. It didn't help that they hadn't seen a hint of Castiel for the entire two weeks.

"No, we. We need training wheels, all three of us. As a team. Okay?" Dean corrected himself, frustrated by his brother.

"Okay." Sam agreed and Elena breathed a sigh of relief that they actually managed to agree on.

"Man, I really want this to be a fresh start, you know? For the both of us." Dean said, almost sounding pleading.

* * *

Elena bounded into the motel room before them, throwing her stuff on the bed before collapsing on it. Dean and Sam came in carrying the hanging bags for their suits and the weapons bags as well.

"So Sheriff's department first?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think that's our best bet. Get what information they have before we go to the scene of the crime." Dean shrugged, looking at Sam who was about to head into the bathroom to change.

"How about you two go be FBI agents and I don't." Elena suggested, smiling.

"You're gonna sit this one out?" Dean asked.

"Nope, I'm gonna go shopping and then you can pick me up before you go to the scene and we'll go from there." she said, grinning at him.

"Why?" he asked, confused.

Elena bit her lip. She couldn't straight up say that she was going to force them to get along whether they liked it or not. If they had her there, she knew that they would bounce ideas for the case off of her instead of talking to each other. This way, they were forced to work together and to be nice about it.

"Because I want new clothes and you and Sam can handle the FBI side of things just fine." She said, pulling him down onto the bed with her and wrapping her arms around his neck. "You two also need some time alone."

"I don't think that's true." Dean said, looking down at her as his hands ran through her hair.

"Well… I didn't ask. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about." She said, smiling at him.

He sighed and let his head fall onto her shoulder.

"Please come with us?" he mumbled into her jacket.

"No. But…" she lifted his head to look at her. "… I will kiss you."

He smiled against her lips and responded, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other tangled in her hair. Sam made a sound of disgust when he came out of the bathroom and they were still kissing. Dean pulled away from her to give his brother a look. Elena laughed as she pushed him off and adjusted her clothing and hair.

"I have my phone. Text me when you're heading over and I'll let you know where I am." She said, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

Dean stared after her, confused.

* * *

"Agents Bonham and Copeland." Dean said as they flipped the badges open to show the Sheriff.

He reached out to shake his hand.

"Rick Carnegie. Good to know you. So you're here on account of Cal Hawkins' death?" he asked, looking between them.

"That's right." Sam nodded, shoving his badge back into his pocket.

"Well, afraid you came a long way for nothing. We already booked the guy that did it." Rick nodded.

Sam and Dean turned to frown at each other, confused.

"I'm sorry… who do you think did it?" Dean asked.

* * *

Elena was browsing the intimate section at the department store when she rounded the corner and saw Gabriel leaning against a rack with different styles of lacy underwear on it.

"Buying something for your lover boy?" he asked as she jumped and put her hand over her racing heart.

"No, I'm just looking." She said defensively.

"Mh-mm. A likely story. I heard about Dean's trip to the future via Zachariah. How did he enjoy that?" Gabriel asked as he picked up a pair of particularly flimsy panties.

"That was two weeks ago. I've been calling on you every day since." Elena said accusingly, ripping them out of his hands and throwing them on the table.

"I was just doing what you asked me to do. I was 'getting out'." he informed her.

Elena sighed and rubbed her forehead frustratingly.

"Wait a minute, how did you know I was here?" she asked, gesturing to her ribs.

"It's the same as with you and your charges. If I concentrate really hard, my insticts will lead me right to you. It helps that I can sniff you out because of that little genetic code I inserted in you." he said.

"Sniff me out?" she said, sounding a little violated.

Gabriel shrugged as Elena sighed heavily.

"I was wrong to yell at you. I can't… shouldn't… blame you for remaining loyal to your brothers. They're your family." She said, turning to walk into the dresses.

Gabriel followed her.

"No harm done, snookums. You didn't hurt my feelings." Gabriel said with a smirk.

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.

"I'm still not gonna convince Dean to say yes." She informed him.

"As is your right. But only as long as you're willing to face the consequences." The archangel said.

"Do you know what he'll do to me?" she asked.

"Zachariah is a lot of things, a dick being one of them, but he is not unimaginative. He learned it from me." Gabriel said with a wink.

She simply gave him a slightly distressed.

"He's not going to kill you. That'll be too easy… too final. Dean can mourn for you and get past it and still continue to say no to Michael. No he's gonna do something that's long and drawn out. Something that will cause pain for you both." he explained.

"Will it hurt?" Elena asked.

"Most likely. But that doesn't mean it'll particularly be physically painful. Sometimes the deepest pain is the pain that happens in here." He said dramatically, touching his hand to her heart.

"He said something about us being separated." Elena said.

"Then that's probably what will happen. But it won't be enough to keep you away from each other. Zachariah's got a little sadism in him." Gabriel said.

"A little?" she asked doubtfully.

"Okay fine… a lot. He'll want to torture you even more than just separation. He'll want it to hurt." He explained, pulling out a dress and handing it to her, throwing it in the pile of clothes that were already in her hands.

"Gee… really feeling the love from you heavenly beings." She said, rolling her eyes as he threw two more into her arms.

She didn't even bother to protest. Would it stop him if she did? Probably not.

"Why did you choose to show up now?" she asked.

"Because I can see your deepest desires. And for once, they aren't Dean Winchesters di…"

"Okay!" she said, her eyes widening.

"You saw something while Dean was on his blast to the future. You saw you." he said, pointing at her.

"She… I… we could do things." Elena said.

"Yep." He agreed, pulling her in the direction of the cashier.

"I haven't tried these on." she argued.

"They'll fit." He assured her.

The cashier, a middle-aged woman, began ringing them up. Elena turned to dig through her purse to pull out one of the many fake credit cards they carried.

"Please, allow me." Gabriel said with a wink, a credit card appearing in his hand.

"Oh, how sweet. How long have you two been together?" the woman asked with a smile.

"Oh we're not…"

"It's been too long. I can't even remember. Right, doll face?" Gabriel sighed happily, throwing his arm over her shoulders.

Elena glared up at him before driving her elbow into his side.

"We're not together. He's more like an annoying older brother." she said, glaring at him as he withdrew his arm.

"Well… he seems plenty sweet to me." the woman said, smiling happily at him.

"Thank you, ma'am." Gabriel said, nodding at her before looking at Elena triumphantly.

He gathered her bags and they walked outside to a bench where they sat down.

"I want to learn how to do the things that my future self was doing." Elena announced, turning to him.

* * *

Sam and Dean were in the Sheriff's office watching a homemade video on the television. The scene on the video was obviously a garage.

"Cal? Is something wrong?" the man on the video asked.

Suddenly the video showed the victim, Cal's, head smashed against the window.

"Oh my God, Cal. Cal!" the man, Jim Grossman, shouted.

The television cut to static and Carnegie shook his head as he turned the television off. He turned to face Sam and Dean.

"Sicko taped his own handiwork." He said.

Sam and Dean exchanged confused looks.

"I don't follow." Sam said.

"It was Jim Grossman that killed Cal." The sheriff said.

"Wait, what?" Dean said, surprised by the accusation.

"Well, he was the only one on the scene for miles." Carnegie shrugged.

"They were best friends." Sam reminded him.

"Most violent crimes are committed by someone close to the victim."

Dean frowned at the man.

"And how exactly did Jim slam Cal into a windshield with all the force of an eighty-mile-per-hour crash?" he asked.

Carnegie blinked, looking stumped by the question as if he hadn't thought of it.

"Drugs, maybe?"

Dean raised his eyebrows at the clueless man.

"Look, you know this ain't brain surgery, boys! Whatever it looks like, that's what it usually is. It's simple." The sheriff said stubbornly.

"Simple. Right." Dean scoffed, looking over at Sam.

"Right. Um, if you don't mind, we'd like to speak to Jim Grossman anyway." Sam requested.

* * *

"I was in the house when it happened, I didn't even see it." Jim sighed as he sat at the table and Dean and Sam stood in front of him.

"For argument's sake, say we believe you." Dean said, crossing his arms.

"Why would you? The cops didn't." Jim said miserably.

"Well we're not your typical cops." Dean informed him, sitting down.

"Please, just tell us what you saw." Sam requested, sitting down as well.

"It's not what I saw, it's what I heard. Tires squealing, glass breaking." Jim said.

He sighed and shook his head.

"It was the car that did it." he informed them.

Dean and Sam both raised their eyebrows at the same time.

"The car?" Sam asked skeptically.

"I mean, I heard about the curse, but, I just thought it was a load of crap." Jim said, staring at them with wide eyes.

"Curse, what do you… what do you mean, curse?" Dean asked, skeptical as well.

"The car. Little Bastard." Jim said.

"Li… Little Bastard? As in **the** Little Bastard?" Dean stammered, shocked.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, uh, what's Little Bastard?" Sam asked.

"It's James Dean's car. It's the one he was killed in." the older brother breathed, sounding almost reverent as he spoke of it.

"Yeah, that's the one. Cal had been looking for it for years. I mean, hell, we both had. But he found it first." Jim said.

Dean leaned close to Sam, trying to hide his excitement from Jim.

"Oh, we are definitely checking this out." he whispered.

* * *

"Do my ears deceive me? Isn't this the girl who wanted nothing more to be human? Who didn't even want the abilities that you had at first?" Gabriel asked teasingly.

Elena sighed, looking at her hands.

"Things change. People change. The things that I wanted then… a normal life with a normal family… they aren't that important anymore. Saving lives… protecting people… especially the ones that I care about. That's what is important." she said, nodding.

She heard a sniffle and looked over at Gabriel.

"My little girl… growing up… so proud." He said, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

Elena rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"I'm not gonna lie to you. It'll take practice. Lots and lots of practice. And that's just to get the apparating thing down."

Elena grinned over at him.

"What?" he asked, confused at her sudden happiness.

"That's what I called it with Cas. Apparating. He had no idea what it was." she admitted.

"Great minds thing alike, sugar lips." he winked at her.

Elena shook her head, hating to admit that his constant flirting was actually endearing her to the archangel.

"Whatever, hot stuff." She said with a roll of her eyes.

He laughed and threw his arm around her shoulders. She didn't throw it off this time.

"If you keep on using your abilities that you have now, healing and all that super strength… it'll become easier to develop other ones. The next step is healing others." Gabriel said.

She turned to him with wide eyes.

"I've tried… I can't." Elena admitted.

"That's cause you haven't tried hard enough and you haven't had me to help you." he replied easily.

"You're gong to help me?" she asked.

"Of course… what kind of… for lack of a better term… guardian angel would I be if I didn't?" he said, looking over at her.

She stared back at him before smiling slightly.

"So tell me how you know Sam and Dean." She requested.

"Why are you so intent on finding that out?" Gabriel sighed.

"Because I'm a naturally curious person." She shrugged.

"Many of the people on this planet, supernatural and normal, do not know me as an angel. You are one of the few who knows that I am Gabriel. Others, including my brothers, think I'm dead. I am known by almost everyone as a Trickster." He explained.

"Like… in mythology?" Elena asked.

He nodded.

"Oh God… what did you do to Sam and Dean?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I just enjoy messing with the boys. There's nothing wrong with that." he shrugged.

Elena stared at him.

"They tried to kill me first so it was only payback." He said defensively.

"And why did they try to kill you?" Elena demanded.

"I was playing a few tricks on a college campus. Making some urban legends come true. It was fun." He shrugged.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Elena said with a roll of her eyes, marveling over how different her life was now than a year ago.

Suddenly her phone rang with a text.

"They're on their way so I suppose it's time for you to poof away." She said, looking over at him.

"Yeah… I suppose. But I always like to leave things better… or funnier… than when I found them. So here." He snapped his fingers and she was in a new outfit.

"One of the outfits I picked out for you. Enjoy." He said with a smirk before disappearing.

Elena looked down, confused. She was wearing jeans but Gabriel hadn't picked out any jeans for her. She had a feeling that it was going to be a while before she could keep up with that angel.

* * *

Elena ran up to the Impala once it pulled up and threw the bags into the back before climbing into the backseat.

"What did you find out?" she asked.

"You changed clothes." Dean said, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

"I like them." She shrugged with a small smile.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Well… it turns out that Gabriel has good taste in clothing." Elena shrugged, not wanting to divulge the fact that the brothers had a relationship with her angel.

"He showed up?" Dean questioned, turning to look at her.

"Yeah. He, uh… he sniffed me out." she said, grimacing slightly.

"That's creepy." Both brothers said at once.

"Agreed. But kind of comforting too. It's hard to explain." She waved off at their confused looks.

"You see Cas too?" Dean asked.

Elena could tell that he was worried about the fact that they hadn't seen the angel in a while as well.

"No, I didn't." Elena said softly, causing a silence to fall in the car.

"Hey, Dean. I thought you were excited about getting to the guy's house." Sam reminded his older brother.

"Uh, yeah… right." Dean said, turning to drive off.

* * *

"We basically found out that the guy was killed by a curse." Sam informed her as Dean walked around the car with awe, careful not to touch it.

Elena stared at the bloodstained windshield.

"So, what, this is, like, Christine?" she asked, standing as far away from the car as she could.

Dean shook his head, looking up at her with an exhilarated expression.

"Christine is fiction. This… this is real." He sighed, looking down at the car reverently.

"Okay." Sam said slowly.

"Enlighten me." Elena said to Dean.

"Well after James Dean died, his mechanic bought the wreckage, and he fixed it up. And it repaid him by... falling on him." he said, gesturing to the car. "And Tony McHenry was killed when it locked up on the racetrack. I mean, death follows this car around like exhaust. Nobody touches it and comes away in one piece."

"Uh huh." Elena said, staring at the car suspiciously.

"Then, in 1970, it vanished off the back of a truck. Nobody's ever seen it since. I'm telling you if this… if this car is Little Bastard, I will bet you dollars to donuts it's what killed the guy." Dean said, smiling at them.

"So how do we find out?" Elena asked, unable to understand the excited glimmer in his eyes.

"Cal matched the VIN number, but the only real way to know is the engine number." Dean said.

Sam nodded as Elena stared between them, not really connecting the dots.

"I'm guessing the engine number…" Sam trailed off.

"On the engine. Yeah." Dean sighed.

Elena's eyes widened as she looked at the supposedly cursed car. Sam and Dean pulled their jackets off and pushed their sleeves up as they stared at the car with trepidation. Dean hesitantly took a step towards it before stopping.

"You want me to do it?" Sam asked, looking at Dean with wide eyes.

"No, no, I've… I've got it." Dean stammered

"I'd like neither of you to do it." Elena pointed out.

It was useless and she knew it.

"If it's a haunted car… we need to make it stop being haunted." Sam reminded her.

"Doesn't mean I'm happy about it." she said, wincing as Dean took another step towards the car, his hands hovering over the hood.

"Okay, baby. I'm not gonna hurt you, so... don't hurt me." he said as he gestured for Sam to grab him a roller board that was next to the car.

Elena began biting her lip as Dean laid down on the board with a pencil in his mouth and a piece of paper in his hands. Her hands were shaking and she was certain that this would not go well and that Dean was going to be crushed by the car just like James Dean's mechanic was. Suddenly the car shuddered and Elena clapped her hand over her eyes, fighting the urge to yank Dean out from underneath it. She watched as Sam dropped onto the ground next to Dean and startled him.

"Need a flashlight?" he asked.

"No. Don't... do anything, just go away." Dean hissed.

Elena removed her hand and resumed biting her lip as she began pacing.

"You… uh, okay?" Sam asked, detecting the fear in his older brother's voice.

"Don't speak. All right? In fact, don't even look at her, she might not like it." Dean instructed him before Sam stood once again.

They heard Dean rubbing the pencil on the paper and the car shuddered once again. Finally he rolled back out from underneath it and they all let out a breath of relief. Dean shuddered as he stood, composing himself before he handed Sam the piece of paper.

"Find out who owned it. Not just the last owner, you have to take it all the way back to 1955." He said, his voice still shaky.

"That's a lot of research." Sam informed him, staring at him.

"Well, I guess I just made your afternoon." Dean shot back before walking off.

Elena sighed as they went into another one of their annoying stare downs.

* * *

"Where's Dean?" Sam asked as he looked over at Elena.

She was making calls as he found numbers for different mechanics and used car dealerships.

"He went out to get some beer." Elena said simply, crossing another number off the list as they'd figured out what the deal was with the car.

"Wasn't that… an hour ago?" Sam asked.

She looked over at the clock, confused. She'd refused to go with him, wanting to spend some time with Sam. That might have been a mistake. Sam pulled out his phone to call him.

"Yo." Dean answered.

"Hey. Took us a while, but we traced all the car's previous owners." Sam said.

"Any of 'em die bloody?" Dean asked.

"Nope. In fact…"

Sam cut off when they heard the distinct noise of pool balls colliding.

"Dean, are you in a bar?" Elena demanded as Sam put it on speakerphone.

"No, I… I'm… I'm in a restaurant." Dean stammered and they exchanged an annoyed look.

"Here's your beer." A male voice said and Elena rolled her eyes.

"Thanks." Dean said, sounding busted.

They both frowned at the phone.

"That happens to have a bar." He corrected himself.

"We've been working our asses off here." Sam said.

"Hey, world's smallest violin, pal, I spent the afternoon up Christine's skirt. I needed a drink." Dean shot back.

"Actually, you didn't." Elena announced.

"Meaning?" Dean questioned.

"The car's first owner was a cardiologist in Philadelphia; drove it 'til he died in 1972." Sam answered.

"So you're saying…" Dean urged someone to tell him what was happening.

"That Porsche is not, nor has it ever been, James Dean's car. It's a fake Little Bastard." Sam informed him.

"Well then what was it that killed the guy?" Dean asked.

"Good question." Sam and Elena said at the same time.

* * *

Elena walked behind Sam and Dean up to the house where the most recent accident happened. When they got to the **Do Not Cross** line, Dean turned to smirk at her.

"What?" she demanded.

"You can't cross." He said, sounding amused.

"Why not?" Elena asked, looking between them.

"Because you decided to go clothes shopping instead of playing FBI." Sam reminded her.

Both of the brothers smirked at her before ducking under the tape.

"Oh screw you both." she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

A man walked up to the line.

"All right everyone, we're gonna have to ask you to leave. This is a closed scene and we don't want a crowd here." The police officer said, urging them backwards.

Elena knew that was cop speak for, 'we're about to bring out a body bag and we don't want you to see it because we don't want to set the town into an uproar'. So when everyone else dwindled off, she remained exactly where she was standing.

"What are you doing? I told you to go." the cop said, staring at her.

"I'm waiting for my colleagues. I'm their assistant." She said, pointing at Sam and Dean.

"Yeah, right. Those guys were at the precinct today and they didn't mention anything about having an assistant so I'm afraid that you're gonna have to disperse before I arrest you for disrupting an officer in the performance of his duties." He said, glaring at her.

Elena huffed before turning to walk to the sidewalk.

"You gonna arrest me for standing on a public sidewalk?" she shot back.

He shot her one more glare before turning to walk off.

* * *

"I want you to use a fine-tooth comb. The evidence is here, we just have to find it." Carnegie said as he stood just outside of the door to the house.

"Heard you got another weird one." Dean said, walking up to him.

"Uh, well, it's a… it's a little strange on the surface, I admit, but, uh...you know, once you… you look at the facts..." he stammered.

"William Hill died from a gunshot wound to the head. No gun, no gunpowder, no bullet." Sam pointed out.

Dean shrugged, looking from Sam to the Sheriff.

"Nope. Nothing strange about that." he said sarcastically.

"Well there's has to be a reasonable explanation. There always is." Carnegie argued.

"Well what's your reasonable explanation?" Dean scoffed.

The man looked around cautiously before leaning in as if he was going to tell an important secret.

"Professional killer." He whispered.

"Come again?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at the strange man.

"Well, CIA, NSA, one o' them trained assassins, like in Michael Clayton." He said.

Dean and Sam gaped at the man, unable to believe how ignorant he was.

"Right." Dean said slowly, turning to look at Sam.

"You're welcome to look around, but… but these guys don't leave fingerprints." Carnegie assured them.

"Mind if we talk with the witness?" Sam asked.

"Be my guest. She's not making any sense! And she's not making any sense in Spanish either." Carnegie said, pointing to a bench at the sidewalk close to where Elena was standing, looking frustrated.

"Right." Dean repeated, nodding as they walked away from the man.

* * *

"No puedo vivir aquí. Necesito mi familia. Me voy ahora. Me voy a la casa. No… me voy a la casa en El Salvador ahora." The woman, William Hill's housekeeper, whimpered to a police officer as they approached.

"Consuela Alvarez?" Dean questioned.

"Yes?" the woman asked, looking up at them.

"FBI." Sam said as they showed their badges.

The police officer stood and walked off.

"Now, uh, you said you saw something in the professor's house. Right? Something in the window?" Dean asked.

"Estaba sacando la basura. Imiré por la ventana y vi al hombre que mató al Señor Hill!" she began to rant.

Sam and Dean exchanged panicked looks before kneeling before her.

"Uh, Señora Alvarez. Cálmese, por favor. Uh…"

He looked up at Dean, thinking as hard as he could.

"Uh, díganos lo que vio?" he asked, uncertain.

Dean grinned and nodded.

"Nice." He encouraged his little brother.

"Freshman Spanish." Sam said with his own smile.

"Era alto. Muy alto. Y llevaba el abrigo negro largo y tenía bigotes." Consuela informed them as Elena walked up to stand next to Dean.

Sam and Dean exchanged wide eyed looks.

"Alto? Singing? A singing man?" Dean asked.

"Negro is black." Sam shrugged as Elena rolled her eyes.

"Bigotes sounds a little dirty. Largo bigotes." Dean said, laughing at himself.

"A tall man, very tall. With a long black coat and a…" Elena said as she squinted at the woman.

"A beard?" she asked the hysterical woman.

Consuela nodded, her eyes still wide.

"Y un sombrero." She informed them.

"Dude was wearing a sombrero?" Dean asked, smirking at the idea and Elena knew that he was picturing the big Mexican hat.

"A hat?" Elena said, gesturing to Sam's head as he was still kneeling in front of her.

"No, no, no, un sombrero alto." She said and Elena moved her hand up higher.

"Singing again?" Dean asked.

"A tall hat?" she asked.

"Oh, like a top hat." Dean guessed.

"Un sombrero alto." Consuela stressed.

"Was the hat singing?"

"No one was singing!" Elena hissed to Dean before gesturing higher.

"A stovepipe hat?" she asked.

"Sí." Consuela nodded.

"Oh yeah, like Abraham Lincoln." Dean said with a smirk.

Sam shrugged as Consuela began sobbing again.

"Sí. El Presidente Lincoln."

They exchanged confused looks, no one having any problem translating that.

"Abraham Lincoln kill Mister Hill!" the hysterical woman cried.

"Huh?" Dean said, stumped.

"S-so I go home now?" Consuela asked, looking up at them tearfully.

"Uh, sí. Gracias." Sam nodded.

"Gracias." Dean pronounced totally wrong.

Sam turned and frowned at them as Consuela walked off.

* * *

Dean and Elena were sitting on one side of the table in the motel room and Sam was sitting on the other researching. Elena and Dean were looking at the video from the fake Little Bastard case.

"Hold on." Elena said as she saw something.

"I saw it too." Dean said, pausing it and backing it up a few frames.

"Whoa." He said as a figure in a red jacket appeared, reflected in the chrome of a car wheel.

"What?" Sam asked.

Dean went back and forth between adjacent frames and they figured out that the image was only present in one frame but not the other.

"It's a freeze-frame from Jim Grossman's video." Dean said as he turned the laptop around for Sam to see.

Sam squinted at it.

"Am I crazy, or does that look like James Dean?" Dean questioned.

"That looks like James Dean." Sam and Elena said at the same time.

"So we got Abraham Lincoln and James Dean?" Elena asked.

Dean turned the laptop back around and closed it as Sam frowned.

"Famous ghosts?" Dean asked.

"Maybe." Sam said.

"Well that's just silly." He said.

"No, actually, uh, there is a ton of lore on famous ghosts. More than the, you know, not-famous kinds. I'm actually surprised we haven't run into one before." Sam suggested.

"Yeah, but now we got two of 'em? Two extremely pissed off ghosts?" Elena asked.

"Who are apparently ganking their fans." Sam offered.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

Sam turned to his computer and read off of it.

"Professor Hill was a Civil War nut. He dug Lincoln." He explained.

"And Cal must've been a James Dean freak. He spent seventeen years of his life tracking down the guy's car." Dean nodded.

"So you're saying we've got two super-famous, super-pissed-off ghosts killing their... super-fans?" Elena asked as Sam raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"That's what it looks like." he said.

"Well, that is muchos loco." Dean said, nodding.

Sam and Elena exchanged a grin.

"Muy." They said at the same time.

Dean looked up to glance between them.

"Not muchos." Elena explained.

"Muy loco." Sam nodded.

"Yeah, well, the big question is, what the hell are they doing here?" Dean said, disgruntled at their correction of his Spanish.

"Yeah. Ghosts usually haunt the places they live. I mean, I-I get Abraham Lincoln at the White House…" Sam trailed off.

"And James Dean at a race track, but... what the hell are they doing in Canton?" Dean asked.

Elena pulled Dean's computer over to him as Dean stood and walked to the fridge to get a can of soda. Thirty minutes after starting more research, she came across something.

"You have to be kidding me." she said.

"What?" Dean asked as both him and Sam walked over to read the screen.

"You have to be kidding me." they said at the same time.

* * *

Elena looked around with an interested look as they stood in the main room of the wax museum. Dean and Sam were wandering around checking out the statues of JFK, Nixon, and, unsurprisingly, Lincoln. She held a notepad in her hand as they waited on the owner of the museum. She looked over in time to see Dean frown at the statue of Gandhi.

"Dude, he's short." He snorted, looking over at Sam, who rolled his eyes.

"Hey. Gandhi was a great man." Sam shot back.

"Yeah, for a Smurf." Dean scoffed, interrupted by the owner coming down the stairs at a half jog.

He was slightly out of breath and wearing a somewhat familiar leather jacket.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, this is our busiest time of the year." He said, smiling at them.

Elena saw Dean look around out of the corner of her eye and knew that he was about to say something asshole-like.

"This is busy?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, not right now, but it's early." The owner said, shrugging.

"It's four-thirty." Dean said skeptically.

"So, what can I do for you?" he said, glaring at Dena.

"Well, I am writing a piece for Travel Magazine. I'm Olivia Fisher and these are my colleagues, John Bonham and Stewart Copeland, my photographer and my researcher." Elena said with an easy smile, glad to be playing the part of journalist.

The owner looked at her with surprise before his eyes drifted down to her bare legs and back up to her face.

"Yeah, our piece is on how, uh, totally non-sucky wax museums are." Dean snapped, glaring at the man.

"That's fantastic. A little press, just what we need." The man said with a wide smile.

"Great. Well we're interested in a few of your exhibits, specifically Abraham Lincoln and James Dean." Elena said, looking over at the statue of Lincoln.

"Two of our most popular displays." The owner informed her proudly.

"Oh yeah? So they bring in a lot of visitors?" Sam asked, stepping forward.

"Yeah, we have our regulars." The man nodded.

"I don't suppose that, uh, William Hill and Cal Hawkins were regulars, were they?" Dean asked, trying to be subtle.

"As a matter of fact, they were." He nodded. "Yeah, I heard what happened to them. It's tragic, just tragic. Oh… you… that's not gonna be in the article, is it?" he asked, panicking.

"Of course not." Elena said, smiling at him.

"You know, I have to tell you, that… that Lincoln is so lifelike, I mean, you… I mean, you can just imagine him moving around. You ever see anything like that?" Dean asked, causing the owner to frown at him.

"Uh... no." the owner said, staring at him as if he was crazy.

"No?" Dean asked hopefully.

"Is there anything you could think of that would make your museum... unusual? You know, for the article?" Elena asked, looking at him with an interested face.

"Well, I'll say. There isn't another place like us, not anywhere." He said with a grin once again.

"How so?" Dean questioned.

"Well, for one, that's Honest Abe's real hat." He said, pointing to Lincoln.

"It is?" Sam asked.

"Almost like his remains." Dean said, looking pointedly at Sam and Elena.

"Uh...I guess?" the owner said, freaked out again by Dean's strange behavior.

"You wouldn't happen to have any of James Dean's personal effects, would you?" Sam asked.

"Ooh, yeah. Got his keychain. We got a bunch of stuff, uh, Gandhi's bifocals, FDR's iron lung. This." he said, gesturing to the jacket.

"And who did that belong to?" Elena asked, frowning at the jacket.

"The Fonz. Seasons two through four!" he said, doing double thumbs up as he grinned widely.

"W-wow. Yeah, that's…that's really cool... ish." She said, unsure of how else to react to that.

"This? This is nothing. I've been working on a new collection of figures. Stuff that'll really wow the kids." He said, sounding thrilled.

"The kids?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, Gen Y." he shrugged.

Dean nodded as if he knew what the man was talking about.

"Computer games, cell phones, sexting."

Elena let out a cough at that and had to cover her mouth as Sam thumped her back.

"I actually do quite a little bit of that last one with my lady friend." The owner said with a wink.

"That's not going to be in the article!" Elena said loudly, slamming her notebook shut with a traumatized expression.

Dean raised his eyebrows as the owner scoffed and shook his head.

"They're just fads. I'm gonna make wax museums hip again." He said, looking back up at them.

He grinned and did the double thumbs once again. Dean chuckled and shook his head as Sam returned an uneasy thumbs up and they turned to leave.

* * *

"I'm gonna go get weapons out of the Impala." Sam announced as he stood to walk to the door.

"I'll go with you." Elena said, scrambling off of the bed where she was lying with Dean watching television.

They looked at her questioningly.

"I left my phone in the car." She shrugged.

"All right." Sam said, opening the door and allowing her to walk through first.

When they got to the Impala, she leaned against the door as he opened the trunk.

"Aren't you gonna get your phone?" he asked.

"I lied. I wanted to talk to you." she said, smiling at him.

"Why?" he asked warily.

"How are you doing, Sam?" she asked, suddenly serious.

He looked up at her as he loaded guns into a bag.

"I'm fine." He said.

"Really? Or you're fine in the way that you don't want to talk about it?" Elena questioned.

"I mean… I'm… I just…" he sighed, shaking his head as he shut the trunk and put his hands on it, leaning forward.

"Go on." Elena said, wanting to get him to talk.

That's where they went wrong last time. They stopped talking, all three of them. If she could get Sam to talking again, get him to admit what he was thinking, then there would be no more surprises. He would be okay with coming to them and telling them what was going on.

"I wish that Dean would stop treating me like an invalid." He admitted, peeking up at her.

"He's just worried about you, Sam." she assured him.

Sam scoffed and shook his head.

"He's going about showing it the wrong way, but it's what is happening. He's so afraid that you'll slip back into old ways, that you'll start drinking demon blood again. It terrifies him even though he won't admit it. He doesn't want to see you hurting yourself again." Elena explained.

"Well why doesn't he just say that instead of constantly insinuating how much he can't trust me?" Sam demanded frustratingly.

"You know your brother, Sam. He doesn't do that touchy-feely crap. Most of the time you have to guess what Dean is feeling." Elena said.

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

"I just wish I could go back, you know?" he said.

"But you can't and that's a good thing. You can learn from your mistakes, Sam. You can make better decisions in the future. That's why we make mistakes." She assured him.

"This is getting a little soap opera like." he admitted after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah, it is." She agreed, smiling at him before looping her arm through his to walk back to the motel room.

When they opened the door, they heard Dean talking as he sat on the bed. He didn't notice them come in.

"Yeah, Abraham Lincoln and James Dean, can you believe that? Why so kill-crazy? Ah, maybe the apocalypse has got 'em all hot and bothered. Yeah, well, we all know whose fault that is. ... well I'm sorry, but it's true." Elena gaped at his back at his careless tone.

Sam scowled in his direction and slammed the door shut, causing Dean to spin around and take in their expressions.

"I'll call you later. Bye." Dean said before hanging up the phone.

"What's going on?" Sam asked as Elena remained rooted right where she was.

"Did you get the trunk packed up?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, trunk's packed. Who was on the phone?" Sam nodded.

"Bobby." Dean shrugged, standing up to pull his jacket on.

"And?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head.

"Nothing." He shrugged.

"So we're just gonna pretend I didn't hear what I just heard?" Sam demanded, suddenly angry.

"Pretend or don't pretend. Whatever floats your boat." Dean said, pushing past him to walk to the door.

"This was supposed to be a fresh start, Dean." Sam snapped, whirling around.

"Well, this is about as fresh as it gets." Dean said as he turned to look back at his brother.

"Dean." Elena said, looking up at him with a furrowed brow.

"Are we going or not?" Dean said, cutting off the conversation before he turned to walk out.

Elena exchanged a sympathetic look with Sam before they turned to follow him to the car.

* * *

Elena leaned against the desk watching as Sam and Dean walked around fetching the things they needed. Sam set a metal trashcan in the center of the floor as Dean pulled off Lincoln's hat.

"Check it out." Dean said and they turned to see him wearing the hat.

"Four score and seven years ago, I had a funny hat." He said in a low voice, mimicking Lincoln.

"Dean." Elena sighed, shaking her head.

Sam held his hand out for the hat and Dean pulled it off, shoving it into his hands with a slight pout.

"We can't have any fun with this?" he asked, looking between them.

"Let's just torch the objects, torch the ghosts, and get out of here. Okay?" Sam snapped, still upset by what he heard in the motel room.

"I'll go grab East of Eden's keychain." Dean said, turning to walk out.

"I'll go with you." Elena said, hopping off the table to follow him.

Dean sighed as they walked out of the room.

"Nothing to say, huh?"

"What do you want me to say?" he replied, his mood sour again.

She grabbed his jacket and whirled him around.

"I want you to start taking it easy on your brother." she said.

Dean sighed and turned his head away from her. Elena glared up at him and turned it right back so that he would look her in the eyes.

"Hey! I mean it! Nothing is going to get better until you stop reminding him of the mistakes he made." She said seriously.

"What if it can't get better, huh?" he shot back, sounding truly afraid that it would never be okay between him and his brother.

"It sure as hell isn't gonna get any better until you try. You, Dean. You are what is holding the two of you back from forgiveness, not Sam. He's willing to try anything but you aren't giving him a chance. You have to give him a damn chance." She said, her voice pleading towards the end of her rant.

He sighed and opened his mouth to say something but they suddenly heard the slamming of doors and a crash.

"Sam?" Elena called as they turned to walk to the room.

The doors were shut and Dean leaned forward, trying to rattle them open as they heard more crashes.

"Dean! Elena!" They heard Sam shout for help.

Elena didn't have to think much once she heard the distress in his voice. She concentrated on the doors for half a second and they slammed open. They ran inside without a second thought and saw Sam wrestling with Gandhi.

"Dean!" Sam called for help as the figure jumped on his back.

"Is that Gandhi?" Dean asked.

"Yeah!" Sam wheezed.

"Dude, he's squirrelly." Dean remarked as Elena looked around for the shotgun.

"Get the…" Gandhi elbowed Sam in the chest before he could say anymore and winded him.

Sam pointed at Gandhi's wax figure and Dean ran over to it.

"Do it!" Sam choked out.

"Get the what?" Dean asked.

"Glasses!" Elena exclaimed, running over to grab them.

She threw them into the trash can as Dean squirted lighter fluid into it. He finally lit them on fire with a match and Gandhi almost immediately disappeared as Sam fell to the ground gasping for air.

"You couldn't have been a fan of someone cool?" Dean asked.

Elena and Sam turned to stare at him.

"Really? Gandhi?" he scoffed, shaking his head as he walked out to find James Dean's keys.

* * *

"Ready to blow this joint?" Dean asked as they packed up.

Sam walked out of the bathroom zipping up his toiletries bag but looking troubled

"Didn't it strike you as strange the way Gandhi just... vanished?" he asked.

"Strange how?" Elena asked, looking up at him.

"No screaming, no big flame-out, I mean, that isn't the way ghosts usually go." Sam shrugged.

"Still, I torched, he vanished." Dean said.

"Yeah, but I…" Sam sighed, cutting himself off. "… also, I feel like he was... trying to take a bite out of me."

"A bite?" Elena questioned.

"Yeah, like he was hungry. But the thing is, Gandhi… or, the real Gandhi… he was a…" Sam cut off, unwilling to admit to this.

"A what?" Dean urged him.

Sam continued to hesitate.

"Spit it out." Dean sighed, annoyed.

"He was a fruitarian." Sam gave in.

Dean and Elena stared at Sam for a moment before Dean laughed.

"Let me get this straight. Your, uh, ultimate hero was not only a short man in diapers, but he was also a fruitarian?" Dean said, shaking his head.

"That's not the point." Sam argued.

"That is good. That is… even for you, that is good." Dean chuckled.

"Look, I'm just saying, I'm not so sure this thing is over." Sam insisted.

Dean sighed, spreading his arms out.

"It was a ghost. It was a weirdly super-charged fruitarian ghost, but it was still a ghost. Now let's go." he said, picking up his stuff and gesturing for them to follow him.

Elena, however, wasn't certain that Sam was wrong.

"So first you drag me into town, and now you're dragging me back out." Sam demanded.

"You ain't steering this boat. Let's go, chop-chop." Dean said, walking towards the door.

"You know, this isn't gonna work." Sam snapped, finally having enough.

Dean stopped and turned as Elena rubbed her forehead, ready for them to fight once again.

"What isn't?" Dean asked.

"Us. You, me, together, I… I thought it could, but it can't." Sam said, shaking his head.

"You're the one that wanted back in, chief." Dean informed him.

"And you're the one who called me back in." Sam shot back.

"Guys stop…" Elena began.

"I still think we got some trust building to do." Dean interrupted her.

She shook her head. Clearly what she said the night before had no effect.

"How long am I gonna be on double-secret probation?" Sam demanded.

"Till I say so." Dean shrugged.

"Look. I know what I did. What I've done. And I am trying to climb out of that hole, I am, but you're not making it any easier." Sam said, proving Elena's point for her.

"So what am I supposed to do, just let you off the hook?" Dean asked, glancing over at Elena as if he was asking her too.

"No. You can think whatever you want. I deserve it, and worse. Hell, you'll never punish me as much as I'm punishing myself, but the point is, if we're gonna be a team, you and I… it has to be a two-way street." Sam said desperately.

"So we just go back to the way we were before?" Dean scoffed.

"No, because we were never that way before. Before didn't work." Sam said.

Elena looked at him with surprise as Dean frowned.

"How do you think we got here?" Sam sighed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean fired back.

"Dean, one of the reasons I went off with Ruby... was to get away from you." Sam said, sounding apologetic for saying it.

"What?" Dean said, shocked.

"It made me feel strong. Like I wasn't your kid brother." Sam shrugged.

"Are you saying this is my fault?" the older brother demanded.

"No, it's my fault. All I'm saying is that, if we're gonna do this, we have to do it different, we can't just fall into the same rut." Sam said pleadingly.

"What do you want me to do?" Dean asked, shaking his head.

"You're gonna have to let me grow up, for starters." Sam requested.

Dean's phone interrupted their conversation and he set his bag down to answer it, staring at Sam.

"Yeah?" he said.

He looked over at Elena and then back at Sam.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." He nodded before hanging up.

"I guess you were right about this not being over." He said, walking back into the room with his bag.

* * *

"Sheriff Carnegie?" Sam asked as they walked into the Sheriff's office.

"Sheriff, what happened?" Dean asked.

"I, uh, uh..." he said, shrugging and shaking his head.

"I don't know!" he admitted, indicating the interview room where two young women were sitting at the table crying.

Sam and Dean exchanged uneasy looks, wishing that Elena was there but she'd refused to come, saying that she still wasn't playing FBI. They knew that it was because they didn't get her past the yellow tape at the Lincoln scene.

"Excuse us, girls. Hi, we're with the FBI." Dean said, unsure of how to take the teenage girls.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Sam questioned.

"It was horrible!" One girl cried.

"Way horrible." The other agreed.

"What was horrible?" Sam asked.

"I thought she'd be nice!"

"I still can't believe it."

"Believe what?" Dean sighed, frustrated already.

"She took Danielle!"

"Who?" Dean demanded.

The girls looked at each other hesitantly.

"It's okay, you're safe, just, tell us. Who took your friend?" Sam asked.

"It was... Paris Hilton." The first girl said.

They stared at her.

"Sorry?" Sam asked.

"She looked really good, though."

"Skinny!"

"Skinny and fast."

"What… wait… huh?" Dean said, confused.

"Uh, um... where did they go?" Sam asked.

"We don't know."

"They just vanished."

"Would you excuse us for just a minute?" Dean asked, steering Sam outside.

"Paris Hilton's not dead as far as we know, right?" Dean whispered.

"Pretty sure, no." Sam said, shaking his head.

"Which means it's not a…"

"Ghost. No." Sam finished.

"So, what? Paris Hilton is a homicidal maniac…" Dean said.

"Or we missed something." Sam nodded.

"What do you want to do?" Dean asked.

* * *

Elena was leaning against the Impala when the same officer that she clashed with at the crime scene came walking out.

"What are you, some kind of sicko who likes being around cops?" he demanded, noticing her.

"Why yes, officer, I can't resist you." Elena said.

She smiled tauntingly at him, unsure why this cop had something against her.

"Why don't you leave before you get in some trouble?" he asked.

"I would, but I'm waiting on my friends… again." She said, gesturing to Sam and Dean who were walking out of the building.

"Right." he scoffed, shaking his head as he turned to walk away.

She glared after him as they came walking up to her.

"I can't believe I missed it." Sam said, shaking his head.

"Missed what?" Elena asked.

"Went back over the other two vics. There was blood loss. Major." Sam said.

"Oh, well, being a gory smear will do that to you." Dean said.

"No, I… I mean more blood loss than a… a car crash or a head wound should cause, almost like it…"

"Something's feeding." Dean realized.

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

"Awesome." Dean sighed.

"And then…" Sam pulled out a plastic bag.

"There were these." He said, holding out the bag to show them two large things.

"What are those, seeds?" Dean asked, taking it from him.

"Yeah. They were in both vics' bellies." Sam nodded.

Dean quickly handed him the bag back and wiped his hand on his jacket.

"I hope you washed your hands." He said.

"They're unlike any seed I've ever seen before, Dean." Sam said.

"Wow, just when I thought you couldn't get any geekier." Dean said, patting his arm before turning to climb into the Impala.

* * *

"Yahtzee!" Sam announced as they all sat around researching.

"What?" Elena asked.

"The seeds aren't from around here. In fact, they're not from any tree or plant in the country." Sam said.

"Where are they from?" Dean said.

"Eastern Europe. From a forest in the Balkans, which is not even there anymore. It was chopped down, like, thirty years ago."

"So?" Dean asked.

"So, local legend has it that the forest was guarded by a pagan god whose name was Leshi. Um, a mischievous god, could take on infinite forms…"

"And let me guess. He liked to munch on his fans." Dean finished.

"Yep." Sam chuckled. "Could be appeased only with the blood from his worshippers. It would drain 'em, then stuff their stomachs with the seeds." Sam explained.

"So how's he doing it? What, he touches James Dean's keychain and then morphs into James Dean?" Dean asked.

"It's as good a guess as any." Sam said.

"How do we kill him?" Elena questioned.

"Says here to chop off his head with an iron axe." Sam said, looking up at them.

"All right. Let's go gank ourselves a Paris Hilton." Dean nodded.

* * *

Sam and Dean walked directly up to the door that said **Closed for Renovations**, walking in to see a room decorated like a clearing in the woods. Elena was looking around for anywhere else that Paris Hilton might be hiding despite her insistence that they stay together. A path led up to a white house with a wax man standing on the front porch in a suit. Sam immediately noticed a young woman tied to a tree.

"Hey." He ran over to check her pulse.

"She alive?" Dean asked, holding the axe as he walked up to him.

"Yeah. Barely." Sam answered.

The axe suddenly flew out of Dean's hands and embedded itself into a tree on the other side of the. They spun around to see Paris Hilton standing there. She grinned and reared back, punching Dean multiple times in the face and sending him collapsing to the ground. She flipped her hair casually as Sam lunged at her. She shoved him and sent him flying across the room and falling to the ground as well, unconscious.

"Awesome." She said, raising her stilleto-clad foot before stomping on Dean's face.

* * *

Elena heard a crash and turned to run in the direction that it came from. But then she heard something different and her head whipped to the door to see a security keypad that was flashing an angry red color.

"Son of a…" she hissed, realizing that the owner must have noticed their break-in the night before and turned on his security system.

She ran out of the building, hoping that Sam and Dean could kill the Leshi on their own. When she saw the cop cars pull up, she ran out into the street as the six cops streamed out of their cars. She raised her hand to her mouth and whistled loudly, causing them to turn to her. Among them, of course, was her cop friend.

"Sorry boys, I couldn't help myself." She said with a wink, turning to run.

It helped that she was in almost all black clothing. She smiled, satisfied, when she heard them pursuing her. Then she realized that she had no idea where she was going and that the cops were pursuing her in a car.

"Shit! Shit shit shit! Shit!" she repeated as she pumped her legs as fast as she could.

The sirens were getting closer and she ducked into an alleyway. She heard the car screech to a stop and the men began pursuing her on foot. They were no match for her sprint as the police officers were middle aged men. But, as she ran out of the other end, another cop car screeched to a stop in front of her as she attempted to cross the street.

"Fuck!" she shouted, hesitating before attempting to dart around the car.

The officer scrambled out of the front seat and snagged her arm before she could get away. She struggled with him for a moment before he managed to turn her and press her against the car, yanking her arms behind her back.

"Olivia Fisher, if that's even your real name… you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…" the cop began to say as he clapped the cold handcuffs on her wrists.

Elena bit her lip and rolled her eyes as the police officer pulled her away from the car and shoved her non-too-gently into the backseat. She sighed as she leaned her head back, struggling with the bobby pin that was attached to her sleeve.

"Whenever you're ready, boys." She grumbled, wondering why the hell it was taking them so long.

Elena sighed, throwing her head back frustratingly as they pulled up to the station. The cop who was her best enemy leaned in as he opened the door.

"Told you that I would get you, sweetheart." He said with a grin.

Elena turned her head to smirk at him.

"You gonna keep me, hot stuff?" she shot back, winking.

It was then that she knew that the combination of being around Dean and Gabriel had done wonders with her attitude.

"Come on." he snapped, grabbing her arm and hauling her out of the car and inside.

Elena really hoped that the boys were doing all right. Especially since she had the feeling that they were in danger.

* * *

Dean and Sam woke up around the same time, both males realizing that they were tied up to two trees side by side with Danielle next to Sam. They noticed the Leshi sitting on a tree stump still in the form of Paris Hilton, filing her nails with a knife.

"Oh. I'm so glad you're awake for this. This is gonna be huge." She said happily, grinning up at them.

Sam and Dean exchanged a wary look, wondering where Elena was.

"Super. Yeah, I wouldn't wanna miss it." Dean said, turning back to face her as he pulled at his ropes discreetly.

"I mean, I've been stuffing myself with fast food lately. So it's nice to do the ritual right. Prepare a nice, slow meal for a change." She sighed.

"Just like the good old days, huh?" Sam said, also trying to distract her.

"You have no idea. People adored me. They used to throw themselves at me, with smiles on their faces." the Leshi said.

"Yeah, I guess these days nobody gives a flying crap about some backwoods forest god, huh?" Dean chuckled.

The Leshi suddenly stopped filing her nails with a glare directed at Dean.

"No. Not since they cut down my forest and built a Yugo plant." She snapped.

"March of progress, sister." Dean shrugged.

She continued filing her nails, staring at them.

"For years now, I've been wandering. Hungry. Scared. Scrounging for scraps. So not sexy." She said, shaking her head.

Dean shook his head disgustedly.

"But then, the best thing ever happened." She said, putting the knife down and leaning back with her legs crossed. "Someone tripped the apocalypse. And I thought, what the hell, I'm tired of watching what I eat. I wanna pig out. So I found this little place. It's awesome. Adoring fans stroll right in the door."

"Yeah. But they're not your fans." Sam argued.

"So? They worship Lincoln, Gandhi, Hilton... whatever. I'll take what I can get." She informed them.

"You know, I gotta tell you, you are not the first god we've met, but you are... the nuttiest." Dean said.

"No, you, you people, you're the crazy ones. You used to worship gods. But this?" she gestured to her Paris Hilton disguise. "This is what passes for idolatry? Celebrities? What have they got besides small dogs and spray tans?"

Sam frowned as Dean raised his eyebrows, nodding in agreement with her.

"You people used to have old-time religion. Now you have US Weekly." The Leshi said as if it was tiring for her.

"I don't know, I'm more of a Penthouse Forum man myself." Dean said, winking at her.

The Leshi stood and stalked over to him, narrowing hr eyes at him.

"Maybe, but... there's still a lot of yummy meat on those bones, boy." She said, trailing a finger down his cheek.

"Well I hate to break it to you, sister, but, uh... you can't eat me. See, I'm not a Paris Hilton BFF. I've never even seen House of Wax." Dean informed her as Sam frowned at him.

"No. But I can totally read your mind, Dean. I know who your hero is. Your daddy. Am I right?" the Leshi said with a grin.

She smirked at him and walked over to the tree that the axe was embedded in. Dean continued to yank at his ropes with her back turned.

"And this belonged to him. Didn't it? Poor little Dean. All you ever wanted was to be loved by your idol. One distant father figure, coming right up." She said, reaching out to touch the axe.

* * *

Elena glared at the wall as she sat in the cell. Her fingers were black with the fingerprints they'd taken and she also had to get mugshots. If the people in Mystic Falls ever found out that she was arrested, she would never hear the end of it. Luckily, she wouldn't be in the system. She'd never done anything worthy of being put in the system. She looked up as someone walked back towards her.

"We found out who you are, little miss." Her favorite police officer said.

Elena's eyes widened.

"You what?" she said, her eyes widening.

"The finest cat burglar on the East Coast. I can't imagine what you're doing in Ohio." He said with a shrug.

"I'm a what?" she asked, confused.

"You're all over the system, Miss Cojones."

Elena choked on air and thumped her chest as she struggled to breath.

"Yeah, you thought you hid your tracks well. Coming into town and pretending to be a reporter. I suppose you wanted to steal one of those valuable artifacts at the was museum." He said, leaning against the bars.

"You're good." Elena wheezed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Imagine the look on those FBI agents' face when they show up and we've got you here. In little Canton, Ohio. Oh it'll be good." He said proudly.

"FBI agents?" she questioned.

"Yep, called them half an hour ago. Said they got some men on their way that were in Salt Lake City for another case. We're already getting congratulated for finding you." he said with a cocky grin.

"Well I suppose that you might get a promotion, big boy." Elena said, wondering how they could possibly confuse her with an East Coast cat burglar.

"Oh I know I will." He said with a grin, turning to walk off.

"What the hell?" she whispered, confused.

* * *

Dean finally got his hands free and sprinted across the clearing, tackling the Leshi before she could touch the axe. Sam yanked desperately at his own ropes as the Leshi quickly overpowered Dean, throwing punch after punch ass he sat on top of him. Sam finally got free and ran at the tree, struggling to free the axe for a few moments. Finally, he had it in his hands and he swung at the Leshi's head. The creature flew off of Dean and he continued to bring the axe down five more times before the Leshi was finally beheaded. Sam sighed, panting in exertion as he wiped the blood that was splattered across the face. He turned to Dean, who was staring up at him.

"Not a word." He said, holding a hand up.

Sam smiled, unable to keep his mouth shut.

"Dude. You just got whaled on by Paris Hilton!" he said, laughing.

"Shut up." Dean snapped, lying back and grunting in pain as he held his head.

"Where's Elena?" Sam realized.

"I heard sirens before we got knocked out." Dean said, standing up.

They walked to the main room and caught sight of the flashing security system.

"Dammit! What if she was arrested?" Dean said, turning to Sam.

"Well I guess we better get to the police station." Sam said, shaking his head as they walked out to the Impala.

* * *

Elena didn't have to wait long for her answer. The same cop came back with his keys and unlocked her cell.

"Your ride is here." He said, pulling her out and clapping cuffs on her wrists once again.

"I hope they'll be more fun than you are." She shot back as he pushed her down the short hallway.

They reached the front and she caught sight of two men standing there wearing black suits. She stopped short when she immediately recognized them by their hair.

"What did you say your name was again?" the cop standing in front of them asked.

"I'm Agent Smith and this is Agent Jones. They're not hard names to remember." The shorter one said, annoyed.

"Hello boys." Elena said, smirking as she finally realized what was going on.

They turned and one looked at her with a serious expression as the other smirked.

"Well, this department has done a bang up job. We've been trying to catch this girl for years." The shorter one said, shaking his head.

"Are you sure this is the girl? She doesn't look a day over twenty." One of the cops spoke up.

"Did the computer tell you this was the girl?" the serious one said, narrowing his eyes at them.

"Yeah." Her favorite cop nodded.

"Then it's the girl. Trust me." the shorter one said.

"Come on." the serious one walked forward and took Elena's arm.

"Sayonara." The short 'agent' said, saluting the men before following them out.

Elena turned to wink at the cops before they disappeared from view.

* * *

When they finally made it outside and they took her around the corner, Elena whirled around to stare at them.

"Miss Cojones, really? You named my criminal alias after testicles?" she demanded.

Cas looked at Gabriel with narrowed eyes and she suddenly felt the cuffs disappear.

"It was up to Gabriel to come up with the file for you." Castiel said.

"Oh relax, Cassie boy, it worked, didn't it? You, hot lips, owe us your gratitude instead of using your judgy eyes on me." Gabriel said, pointing at her.

"You used Cojones as my name!"

"Because I'm pointing out that you have the cojones to get arrested and smartmouth the officers the entire way to the station and even when you're sitting in your cell!" Gabriel shot back, grinning at her.

Elena couldn't help but smile at the archangel.

"The Winchesters are close." Cas said, breaking into their conversation.

"That's my cue." Gabriel said with a grin before disappearing.

Elena turned to Castiel.

"Thank you. And tell Gabriel that I'm thankful too. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get out of that situation." She sighed, running her fingers through her hair.

"You're welcome." Cas said, nodding at her.

She suddenly realized what was so strange about him.

"Cas where's your coat? You look naked without it." she said with a smile.

"Gabriel insisted that I leave it off. He said that I would look more agent-like without it." Cas informed her.

"I think you look plenty agent-like with it on." Elena shrugged.

He looked at her before looking down. When she blinked, the tan overcoat was back on him and he looked normal again.

"That's better. I don't like it when anyone messes with my angel." She said with a fond smile.

He hesitantly smiled back at her. When she heard the distinct sound of the Impala, she looked past Cas and started forward. When she turned back, he was gone.

"Angels." She sighed, shaking her head before turning to run to the Impala.

She practically dove into the backseat.

"Did you kill Paris Hilton?" she asked, looking between them.

"Yeah, did you get arrested?" Dean asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"Yeah. Cas and Gabriel helped me out." she nodded.

"This has been a weird day." Sam pointed out.

* * *

Elena was walking to the car two steps ahead of the boys as Dean talked on the phone. They hadn't even bothered to try to stay the night. Since Elena was arrested, they all thought that it was best that they get the hell out of Dodge.

"Uh-huh. All right. Thank you." Dean said before hanging up.

"Sheriff Carnegie. Danielle's going to be all right. She's sworn off The Simple Life, but other than that…" he trailed off.

"Glad she's okay." Sam nodded.

"It gets better. Sheriff's putting out an APB on Paris Hilton." He laughed, as they smiled and shook their heads.

"That ought to be good." Dean said. "But apparently a prisoner was broken out by two FBI agents. Smith and Jones? Her name was… uh… what did he say again? Miss Cojones?"

Elena made a choking noise and turned to look at them with wide eyes as Dean opened the trunk of the Impala with a smirk.

"Gabriel thinks he's funny." Elena said in explanation.

They both grinned at her as they threw their bags into the trunk and closed it. Sam turned to walk to the backseat but Dean stopped him with a hand on his sleeve.

"Hey, listen, I was thinking about what you said yesterday. About me keeping too tight of a leash on you." he said to Sam.

Elena watched them quietly, wondering where Dean was going with this.

"Hell, maybe you're right. I mean, look, I'm not exactly Mister Innocent in this whole mess either, you know. I did break the first seal." He sighed, shaking his head.

"You didn't know." Sam assured him.

"Yeah, well, neither did you." Dean replied.

Sam looked down as Elena felt the urge to hug Dean. He finally understood.

"I'm not saying demon blood was a great way to go, but, you did kill Lilith." He sighed, leaning against the trunk.

"And start the apocalypse." Sam reminded him miserably, leaning against the backseat door.

"Which neither of us saw coming, I mean, who'd have thought killing Lilith would've been a bad thing?" Dean said. "Point is, I was so worried about watching your every move that I didn't see what it was actually doing to you."

Sam and Elena both stared at him as he paused.

"So, for that I'm sorry." He said, looking over at Sam.

"Thanks." Sam said, looking up at him.

Dean pulled the keys out of the trunk and backed away from the car.

"So where do we go from here?" he asked.

"They way I see it, we got one shot at surviving this." Sam said, turning as well as Elena stepped up to stand with them.

"What's that?" Dean questioned.

"Maybe I am on deck for the devil, maybe same with you and Michael, maybe there's no changing that." Sam shrugged.

"Well that's encouraging." Dean said sarcastically.

"But, we can stop wringing our hands over it. We have to just grab onto whatever's in front of us, kick its ass, and go down fighting." Sam suggested.

Dean considered this for a moment before nodding.

"I can get on board with that." he said, looking at Elena.

"I'm always on board." She said, looking between them.

"Okay. But we're going to have to do it on the same level." Sam reminded Dean.

Dean smiled slightly.

"You got it." he said.

Sam nodded and Dean turned to walk to the driver's side.

"I say we get the hell out of here before Miss Cojones here gets arrested again." He said making Elena flush red.

Sam simply chuckled.

Dean suddenly stopped and looked at the keys before they could climb in.

"Hey." Sam turned around to look at him and Dean held out the keys.

"You wanna drive?" he said.

A slow smile formed on Elena's face.

Sam glanced down at the keys.

"You sure?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I could, uh... I could use a nap." Dean shrugged.

Elena moved to the backseat and watched as Dean tossed Sam the keys when they crossed paths at the front of the car. She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Dean's lips.

"What was that for?" he asked, looking down at her.

"For being amazing." She shrugged, grinning up at him before climbing into the backseat.

* * *

**I hope you liked it!**

**Next: When the trio comes across a powerful witch with a special offer in the guise of a poker game, more than one hunter gets in trouble.**


	7. Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**CHAPTER TITLE: Ain't No Grave - Johnny Cash**

**A few things:**

**1. I am so sorry for my absence. I had a slip back into hard times and feelings and it took me a while to get over. I'm not fully over it, in fact. For now, don't expect updates as often. I hate to do this but a lot is going on with me that I'd rather not get into. All you need to know is that I have not given up on this. I'm just having a hard time.**

**2. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**3. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

**A WEEK LATER**

Elena stood between Sam and Dean as they walked to the counter. When they reached it, the doctor standing there looked up as they pulled out their badges.

"You expect me to believe you're CDC?" he asked skeptically.

Elena's eyes widened.

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, uncertain of how to respond to that.

"It's just that you're a day early. First time in history I haven't sat on my ass waiting for you people." He scoffed.

"New administration. A change you can believe in." Dean said with a grin, making Elena exchange an amused look with Sam.

"Right." The doctor said with a roll of his eyes before he turned to lead them to the morgue.

When they got inside and they'd donned gloves and protective capes, the coroner walked to a table and pulled a sheet of off the corpse they were looking for. The man looked to be at least eighty-years-old.

"Meet Xavier. Date of birth, April 3, 1984." the coroner said, looking down at the corpse.

Elena looked up at Sam and Dean with a confused look.

"I know. I ran the DNA twice. That's definitely him." she nodded.

"Well, he wasn't big on the sunscreen, huh?" Dean said with a slight grimace.

"So, what's your theory?" Sam asked, looking at her.

"All I know is, decedent's male, twenty-five years old… and he died of old age." The coroner shrugged before turning to walk away.

Elena stared down at the body as Sam and Dean exchanged a confused look.

* * *

"You were right about this one. It's definitely a job." Dean said into the phone that Elena was holding as she walked between the brothers and they left the hospital.

"Thought so. Any other stiffs in town?" Bobby asked over the speaker.

"Just the one body." Sam said.

"Anything else?"

"Couple missing persons, but usual for a town this size." Elena informed him.

"Well, check 'em out." Bobby urged them.

"You think they're connected?" Dean asked.

"Call it a hunch." The older hunter said.

"You got it. And, by the way, how you doing?" Dean asked.

Elena and Sam looked at him with wide eyes that said, 'stop talking'.

"Doing?" Bobby said and they could hear him squinting into the phone.

"Yeah. You know, just... in general?" Dean shrugged.

Elena shook her head.

"Oh, you mean my legs. Well, I'm just weepin' in my Haagen-Dazs. Idjit." Bobby snapped before hanging up.

Dean looked put down as he looked at them.

"We told you to stop." Elena and Sam said at the same time.

* * *

"That's the most recent." Mrs. Whitlow, the wife of one of the missing persons in town, said.

She handed them a photo of her elderly husband.

"How long has he been missing?" Sam asked as Elena tucked it into her bag.

"Oh, I knew right away when he didn't come home Tuesday night." The woman said, nodding.

"Is there someplace he likes to go after work, maybe? A favorite bar?" Dean questioned.

Mrs. Whitlow laughed, shaking her head.

"No. Tuesdays, he always works a bit late, but he always comes straight home." she informed them.

"May I use your facilities, ma'am?" Elena asked with a smile.

"Of course, down at the end of the hall." the kind woman said, smiling back as Elena stood and excused herself from the room.

Instead of going into the bathroom, she slipped into the study. She immediately began shifting through the papers on the desk and, when she didn't find anything relevant, she walked to the coat hanging on the door. She dug through the pockets and pulled out what that she found. One receipt for a Chinese brothel that totaled $250.

"Working late my ass." She muttered, shoving the receipt into her pocket before exiting the study.

* * *

"Well, at least he's consistent. Same room every Tuesday, hourly rates." Sam shrugged.

"Hope I got that kind of kick when I'm his age." Dean said with a smirk.

Elena turned to shoot him a look, making his smile falter.

"Yeah, like either of us will live that long." Sam scoffed.

It was Sam's turn to receive the scolding look and he looked like a kicked puppy as they approached the door that they were directed to by the unwilling Madame.

"So... what do you think's in there?" Sam asked.

All of them paused, thinking on it.

"A wrinkly, gooey corpse." Dean suggested.

Elena said wrinkled her nose, hoping to God that wasn't what was in there.

Sam pulled out his lockpick as Elena and Dean kept watch to both sides of the hallway.

"Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh! Oh, God!" they heard someone shouting from inside the room.

They exchanged panicked looks and Sam stood. They both looked at Elena.

"Can you…?" Sam trailed off.

"What you can't break down the door?" she said, scowling between them.

"I'd rather not." Dean said pathetically, rubbing his shoulder where the scar from Castiel's hand was.

She rolled her eyes and turned to concentrate, making the door fly open.

"Hey! What the…" they heard as they ran into the room.

All three stopped short to see a man and woman, both naked with the woman sitting on top of the man looking back at them. Elena clapped her hands over her eyes.

"Oh." Sam said.

"God." Dean muttered.

Another woman slid out from underneath the covers.

"It's gooey." Sam said.

Elena's hands flew out and covered their eyes as both women fled the bed.

"Sorry. Got the wrong room." Elena said, grabbing the back of their jackets to yank them out.

"Close the door!" the man shouted.

Elena was about to slam the door shut when she noticed something and shoved it open again.

"Hey." She walked up to him and looked at his torso before pulling the picture of the elderly man out of her purse.

The two men had the exact same tattoo on their lower arm.

"Nice tattoo." She said, throwing the picture on his bare, quite chiseled chest.

"Happen to know anybody named Cliff Whitlow?" Sam asked as him and Dean walked up to the bed.

"Never heard of him." the man said, shaking his head.

"Well, that's weird." Dean said as he picked up a pair of pants and pulled a wallet out.

After looking for a second, he pulled out an ID.

"Cause you're carrying his wallet." He said, lifting it into the air.

Elena cocked an eyebrow at the man and Dean yanked the covers back. Elena whirled around as the brothers looked at the man's bare body.

"Your wife told us about your, uh, birthmark there. That's nice. Well, you look great. Cliff. Did you get some work done?" Dean asked as Cliff pulled the covers back up.

Cliff sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Please don't tell my wife." The man pleaded, robed now so that Elena could actually look at him.

"Slow down." Dean said, putting his hands up.

"I'm begging you. As far as she knows, I'm dead. For the love of God, let's keep it that way." Cliff pleaded.

"How can you possibly be Cliff Whitlow?" Elena demanded.

"I can't tell you." he said, shaking his head.

"Well, either you tell us or we tell the missus." Dean threatened.

"Okay! Okay! It was a game." He said, throwing his hands up in surrender as he sat on the bed.

"Like... XBox?" Sam asked, making them all look at him.

"What's XBox?" Cliff asked.

Elena believed that he was actually an older man now.

"No. Poker. High stakes. Instead of cash, you play for years."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Dean demanded.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy. Guy comes up to me at a bar, invites me to play. Gives me twenty-five of these weirdo poker chips, right? Chants some mumbo humbo over them, says now they're twenty-five years. I'm laughing, but then I come out up. And look at me." Cliff explained, gesturing to his body.

"What was he chanting?" Sam asked.

Cliff laughed, shaking his head.

"How should I know? All I know is, my bad hip's good, I threw away my glasses. One of those ladies was here for free! Man's some kind of miracle worker." He said, shrugging.

"What does this miracle worker look like?" Elena asked.

"Just a guy. Maybe thirty-five, brown hair. Irish accent. His name was Patrick." Cliff informed them.

"All right, all right. Where's this game at?" Dean asked.

"He said he likes to keep moving. Never stays in one bar long. And he finds you." Cliff said.

"Thank you, Cliff." Sam said as they turned to head for the door.

"Oh, and, uh... stay classy." Dean said sarcastically.

* * *

"It sounds crazy, right?" Dean asked as they sat crowded around a table. Elena was leaning back and her feet were in Dean's lap.

"No. There's lore on it. Goes back centuries. Traveling card player pops into town. You beat him, you get your best years back. 'Course, most folks lose." Bobby explained.

"Well, that would explain the crunchy corpse." Dean nodded.

"Supposedly, this player's a hell of a card shark. Got a lot of years in the bank. You find the bar he's working in yet?"

"There's a lot of dives in this town. We're gonna have to split up." Dean said, his fingers trailing over Elena's ankle.

"Well, why you still talking to me?" Bobby demanded before hanging up.

"Well his winning attitude just cheers me up every time." Dean said.

"Take it easy on him. If you were in his situation and you couldn't help us like you wanted to, you would be crabby too." Elena admonished him.

"Fine. Let's go to bars. Sam?" Dean said.

"You two can go together. I'll go alone." He sighed.

"You're the best, Sam." Elena said, smiling up at him.

"Yeah yeah." He said, ruffling her hair as he passed.

"Hey, you got any of those pretty dresses I like?" Dean asked, winking at her.

"Maybe." She said with a coy smile.

* * *

Elena could practically feel Dean preening next to her as they entered the third bar that they'd been to which was the most fancy in the town. Seeing as they actually planned on staying at this one for more than a few moments, she finally slid off her jacket and heard him curse under his breath at the dress she was wearing.

"Maybe the pretty dress wasn't a great idea." He sighed, leaning in to brush his hand over her bare arm.

"Down boy." She whispered over her shoulder.

It was a sleeveless dress that dipped low onto her back so most of her back was bare. It even showed off her tattoo which Dean always seemed strangely fascinated with when they were in bed. Elena was also feeling quite attracted to Dean. She'd convinced him to wear his FBI suit without the tie and the first few buttons of his white shirt undone. It was an amazing look and she couldn't believe she hadn't convinced him to wear it like that before. She reached out her hand and took his as they walked to the bar. She slid onto a stool and expected him to do the Sam. Instead he stood behind her and his hand trailed over her bare skin on her back.

"We're supposed to be investigating." She whispered, leaning her head back.

"You look too beautiful for investigation." He murmured, his lips trailing over her shoulder.

Suddenly his phone rang and interrupted them. He pulled it out and held it to his ear.

"Find anything?" They both heard Sam question.

"Yeah, a whole bunch of squat. You?" Dean said.

He continued to trail his fingers over Elena's back and enjoyed the shivers he elicited from her.

"No, not a thing." Sam replied.

"All right. Well, you come up dry, circle back to the motel in two. Your turn to grab dinner." Dean said simply, brushing her hair away to get more access to her back.

"Usual?" Sam asked.

"Extra bacon for me. Extra cheese for Elena." Dean nodded.

Before hanging up and sliding into a seat next to Elena as the bartender walked to them.

"Two beers?" he asked.

"Yep." The man nodded, reaching for two bottles and setting them in front of them after opening them.

"You wouldn't happen to know of a poker game going on in back, would you?" Elena asked, leaning forward with interested eyes.

"It's a bar, not a casino." The bartender answered casually.

Dean sighed and began to dig into his pocket.

"My friend Ben told me you'd know." He said.

"Don't know any Ben." The man shrugged.

"Sure you do. You know, balding, smart-ass, real ladies' man?" Dean said with a grin.

The bartender leaned forward, frustrated.

"Listen, pal, I told you, I don't know any Ben. I don't know nothing about a game." He snapped.

"You sure? 'Cause, uh..." Dean slid a hundred dollar bill across the bar. "He sure seems to know you."

The bartender glanced over at Elena as if to judge whether Dean was for real or not. She shrugged and glanced down at the bill. He sighed and picked it up before opening his mouth to explain everything.

* * *

"Round back. Take the elevator down." The bartender yelled after them as they walked out of the back of the bar.

When the door slammed shut, Dean pushed her against it suddenly, covering her mouth with his.

"You… look… so… damn… good." He said between kisses.

"Dean… poker game." She gasped out as his hands slid around her back and pulled her closer to him as they splayed out on the bare skin.

They suddenly heard something clatter and they turned to see none other than Bobby wheeling around the corner.

"You two want to stop acting like horny teenagers?" he snapped.

"Bobby? What the hell are you doing here?" Dean demanded as they stepped away from the wall.

"Planting daisies. What's it look like? Came in on the case." Bobby said, glaring up at them.

"And you beat us here?" Elena questioned suspiciously.

"Well, brains trumps legs, apparently." He said grumpily.

He rolled around him and they followed, something seeming out of place.

"So, you found the game?" Dean asked.

"Yep." Bobby nodded.

"Did you stop it?" Elena questioned.

Bobby didn't answer, scaring them a bit.

"Bobby?" Dean said.

The older hunter suddenly stopped and turned around.

"Not exactly." He admitted, his eyes downcast.

"What did you do?" Dean demanded.

"I played, okay?" Bobby snapped.

They both stared at him with wide eyes before exchanging a wary look.

"And?" Dean asked carefully.

"I lost." Bobby admitted.

"Are you kidding me? You played some… some he-witch?" Dean demanded after a few moments of complete silence from everyone.

"Don't you take that tone with me." Bobby growled, pointing at him.

"You idiot!" Dean yelled.

"They're my years! I can do what I want!" Bobby argued.

"How many did you lose?" Elena sighed.

"Twenty-five." Bobby answered, avoiding her eyes.

She watched with wide eyes as Bobby aged before their eyes.

"We're not done." Dean snapped, taking her hand to drag her in the direction of the elevator.

Bobby followed them unwillingly.

Below the bar, they found another less crowded bar. They noticed a man talking to a couple that consisted of a middle-aged man and a young woman. As they drew closer, they immediately realized that he spoke with an Irish accent.

"Hey, man. Excuse me. Can I borrow you for a sec?" Dean said, grabbing his arm and making sure that the man saw his gun.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. Great. Good to see you." the man said, acting as though he knew Dean.

Elena followed them to a table across the room.

"Sorry to cut you short with Mr. and Mrs. Easy Marks over there." Dean snapped.

"Oh, no big." The man said, holding up a golden wristwatch. "Wasn't a total loss."

Elena watched as Dean pulled out his gun and held it underneath the table.

"Look, I don't know what it is you think I did to your wife or girlfriend…" the man, whose name was Patrick according to Bobby, said, glancing over at Elena.

Dean frowned, confused.

"… mother or sister, but, uh, I just want you to know, my feelings were real." He assured him and Elena rolled her eyes.

"That ain't my problem, man-witch. You owe my friend some years." Dean snapped.

"Oh, that's what this is. I'm sorry. He lost. Them's the breaks." He shrugged, putting a toothpick in his mouth.

"Well, then un-lose him." Dean demanded, cocking the gun.

Patrick glanced down and smirked.

"Oh, go ahead and shoot me, if it makes you feel better. Besides, I could use a good... you know... tickle. You want years? Great. Play me for 'em." He offered.

"Dean no." Elena said quickly.

Dean glanced up at her before looking back at the man.

"Fine." She glared at the back of his head as Bobby came rolling up to the table.

She couldn't help but curse the older hunter for getting Dean in this situation. Of course he was going to play the man for

"Dean…" Bobby began.

"They're my years. I can do what I want." Dean said harshly, throwing Bobby's words back in his face.

Bobby coughed and Patrick held up a cough drop.

"Lozenge?" he asked.

Bobby wheezed and Patrick shrugged.

"What? It's barely linty. Okay, well, suit yourself. Just trying to help." The Irishman said, putting it back in his pocket.

"All right, all right. Come on. Let's do this." Dean said.

"You understand the terms?" Patrick asked, setting a red case on the table.

It contained eight stacks of poker chips. Dean nodded once and Elena rolled her eyes, pulling her coat on and yanking the Impala keys out of Dean's pocket much to his chagrin.

"I'm not gonna watch you do this. You can find a way back to the hotel with Bobby. I swear to God if you die…" She trailed off, angry with him for risking himself like this.

It wasn't as though she could heal him of old age.

"Buy-in's twenty-five years." She heard Patrick tell Dean as she walked to the elevator.

"Make it fifty." Dean said.

* * *

Elena sighed as the door opened and Bobby walked in.

"You ain't gonna like it." he warned her.

A moment later, an older man came walking in. If he hadn't been wearing the exact suit that Dean was and he wasn't carrying Dean's gun, she wouldn't have known who it was. It took one second for her face to darken dangerously and another two for her to cross the room and smack him over the head.

"Ow!" Dean protested, shying away from her anger.

"I told you!" she shouted.

"I got Bobby his years back! That's what matters." He defended himself.

"Congratulations. You're a damn hero." Elena snapped, turning away from him.

Moments later, Sam came walking in with to go food in his hand. When he saw older Dean carrying a gun, he threw the food on a table and drew his own gun.

"Who the hell are you!" he demanded, panicked.

"Dude, relax. It's me." Dean said, raising his hands in surrender.

"Dean?" Sam asked, lowering his gun.

"Hi." Dean waved, sounding frustrated.

"What the hell happened?" Sam demanded.

"I, you know... found the game." Dean shrugged, heading for the food to pick up a burger.

"You f… I thought you said you were good at poker." Sam stammered, sounding pissed.

"I am. Shut up. So, you were just gonna shoot some old guy? Is that it?" Dean demanded, glaring at him.

"I didn't know what you were. I mean, have you seen you? You look like…"

"The old chick in Titanic. I know. shut up." Dean said, his mouth full.

"I was gonna say Emperor Palpatine." Sam shrugged and Dean shook his head.

"Either of you want to tell me what happened?" Sam asked Elena and Bobby.

"Bobby's an idiot. That's what happened." Dean snapped.

Elena was getting freaked out. It was Dean's voice but he looked nothing like the Dean she was used to.

"Hey, nobody asked you to play." Bobby argued.

"Right. I should have just let you die." Dean scoffed.

"And for damn sure, nobody asked you to lose!" Bobby growled back.

Sam grinned and looked at Elena.

"It's like Grumpy Old Men." He said, making her laugh softly despite the stressful situation.

Dean and Bobby turned to Sam in unison.

"Shut up, Sam." they said at the same time.

"What the hell were you thinking? He's a witch. He's been playing poker since guys wore tights." Dean said to Bobby.

"You just don't get it." Bobby fired back.

"Yeah, I get it, Bobby. You saw a chance to turn the hands of the clock back and get out of that damn chair. Pretty tempting. I can imagine." Dean sighed, taking another bite of his burger.

"No, you can't." Bobby argued.

"You got me. I never been paralyzed. But I tell you something… I've been to hell, and there's an archangel there wanting me to drop the soap. Look at me! My junk's rustier than yours! You hear me bellyaching? Huh?" Dean demanded.

Suddenly his stomach growled angrily.

"Uh, actually, yeah." Sam pointed out.

"Oh!" Dean gasped, holding his stomach as he sat down. "I'm having a heart attack."

Sam and Elena looked on, worried.

"No, you're not." Bobby said, shaking his head.

"What is it?" Dean asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"Acid reflux. Guys your age can't digest certain foods. You're gonna need to put down that cheeseburger." Bobby warned him.

Dean obeyed, putting the bacon cheeseburger down with a great reluctance.

"So, you want to keep emoting, or you want to talk about solving this little issue of yours? It's got to be about the chips." Sam suggested.

"I slid 'em across, Patrick did his little witchy number, and you prettied up in a hurry." Dean nodded.

"I mean, what are you all thinking? Some kind of magic chips or something?" Sam questioned, sitting on the bed.

"Definitely." Bobby nodded.

"You remember what he chanted?" Elena asked.

"Yep… every word." Bobby replied.

"All right, then let's find out where he stashes his chips." Sam nodded.

"And steal me fifty. Benjamin Button me back into burger shape. What do you think?" Dean asked.

"I think you're an idiot." Elena said, glancing between him and Bobby. "Both of you."

* * *

Once they found him again, it was easy enough to follow Patrick to an apartment building. Once he left about thirty minutes later, they all walked, or in Bobby's case… rolled, inside. Dean held the door open as Bobby rolled himself inside and they followed. He suddenly stopped and sighed.

"Well, I'm out." he said, gesturing to a sign that informed them that the elevator was out of order.

Elena and Sam walked to the stairs and began jogging up them. They turned to see Dean huffing and puffing a he walked up them. Sam gestured to the sign as he inhaled deeply.

"Why don't you chill here, grandpa?" Elena said with a smirk.

"No, no I can come." Dean wheezed.

Elena and Sam rolled their eyes and turned to walk into the hallway. They were stopped by the presence of a woman.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Aren't you the chick from the bar?" Dean asked as he caught up with them.

"I'm a lot more than that." She threw up a hand and clenched her fist twisting it. Dean doubled over in pain and Elena launched forward without a second thought. She had the witch pinned against the wall instantly. The woman glared at her and Elena could tell that she was trying to use her powers on Elena.

"You're strong." She breathed, her eyes wide.

"Yep." Elena said, throwing her off to the side.

Patrick was suddenly standing there and he caught her. Before she could retaliate, he stopped her.

"It's all right, sweetheart. It's all right. They're harmless." He assured her as Elena backed up to stand by Sam and Dean again.

"You want the chips? Take 'em." He said, tossing them a few chips. "They're just chips, Einsteins. It's showmanship. This may come as a shock, but the magic does not lie in a pile of crappy plywood or in any phony abracadabra. It's in the nine-hundred-year-old witch. You boys want years? Score 'em the old-fashioned way. Texas hold 'em." He shrugged, chewing on another toothpick.

"Fine. Let's do it." Dean said, holding his head up.

Patrick sighed and pulled a card out of his pocket. Elena easily saw that it was the eight of hearts.

"What card am I holding up?" he asked Dean.

They turned to Dean to see him squinting at it.

"That's what I thought. If your eyesight's that bad, what about your memory? I'm not a murderer. You, on the other hand..." Patrick turned to Sam.

"No, Sam." he said, shaking his head.

Elena couldn't help but think that was the only good idea Dean had the entire case.

"What, Sam not much of a player? Okay, well, happy trails, Dean. Enjoy the twilight of your life. Should have taken better care of that ticker, though." Patrick said, turning to walk off. "You're free to go."

Dean and Elena turned to leave but Patrick stopped Sam.

"Oh, but, Sam... your brother's situation… that's punishment enough, but I can't let you leave without a small parting gift." The Irishman said with a smirk before clapping three times.

"What are you doing?" Sam demanded.

"You'll find out soon enough." Patrick said happily.

"Let's get out of here, Sam." Dean said, pulling him towards the stairs.

As they walked out the door with Bobby following them, Sam began shifting uncomfortably and scratched at the inside of his thighs. Then he did it more as they approached the Impala. Elena suddenly realized what happened.

"Dude..." Dean said, realizing it as well.

Sam turned to look at them.

"I believe that he-witch gave you the clap." He chuckled.

Sam went stiff before climbing into the Impala with a pissed off face.

* * *

As they walked up to the hotel, they came to an incline and Bobby stopped, huffing out of anger and frustration.

"Little help here?" he snapped.

Sam immediately backed up and began pushing as Elena and Dean walked on either side.

"You know, I still think I should play." Sam threw out there.

"No, no, no. You're not good enough. I'm better. Bobby's way better. We both lost." Dean said as they came to a more level ground and Sam let go of Bobby's wheelchair.

"Exactly." Bobby nodded.

"So, what? So I don't get a say in this anymore?" Sam demanded.

"Sammy, when you get to be our age…" Dean began.

"You're thirty, Dean! Look, I've watched you hustle plenty of poker…"

"Knowing the game is not enough, Sam. It's not about playing the cards." Bobby cut him off.

"It's about playing the other guy. I know that." Sam said.

"Well, hooray for you. All I'm saying is, I played this guy. I know his style. I can take him." Bobby offered.

"No, Bobby. You don't have enough years in the bank." Dean said.

"I got enough." Bobby said.

"No, you'll die if you lose, Bobby." Sam said.

"So what if I do, huh? What exactly am I living for, huh? The damn apocalypse? Watching men die bloody while I sit in this chair, can't take a step to help 'em?" Bobby said.

They stopped and turned him.

"Bobby…" Dean sighed.

"No, no. It's the facts. I'm old... and broke down... and I can't..." he said, shaking his head.

He took a moment to breathe and get his thoughts together.

"I ain't a hunter no more. I'm useless. And if I wasn't such a coward, I'd have stuck a gun in my mouth day I got home from the hospital."

"Bobby!" Elena exclaimed, horrified as she walked to him and knelt in front of his chair.

"You're not a coward. You're not useless. Look at you, you're still saving our asses, aren't you?" she said, gesturing back at the brothers.

"Not very well apparently." He said miserably.

"Bobby, you are not playing again. I'm not letting you do that." she reached out to pat his shoulder. "There's another way out of this. You three are forgetting something very important."

"What's that?" Sam asked as she stood.

"That I happen to have super strength and limited telekenesis." Elena shrugged.

"Yeah I'm sure the he-witch does too." Dean said as they walked into the motel room.

They stopped short when they saw Patrick's female companion, Lia, sitting on the bed and holding up a piece of paper.

"Take it. It'll help you." she urged them.

Bobby rolled closer and took it out of her hand.

"What is this?" he asked gruffly, looking down at it.

"The most powerful reversal spell you've ever laid your eyes on." Lia said, standing up to walk to the door.

"And it reverses what?" Dean asked.

"Patrick's work… all of it." she informed them, turning at the door.

"You… you saying I could be normal again?" Dean stammered.

"You and everyone else he's ever played." She nodded.

"Who's still alive." Elena said, narrowing her eyes at the woman.

"Why the hell should we trust you?" Sam asked.

"Trust me, don't trust me. I don't care. The spell is real." She sighed.

"If it zaps everyone, don't that include your man?" Bobby asked.

"And me, too. I look good for my age." She said with a sad smile.

"Lady, this don't add up for squat. Why would you want that?" Bobby demanded.

"I have my reasons." Lia said, touching a silver locket around her throat before shaking her head.

"Do it quick. We leave town tomorrow." She said before leaving.

* * *

As Sam entered the underground bar, he found Patrick playing an older man. He looked up at Sam as the man pushed away from the table.

"Hesh here is gonna live to see his granddaughter's bat mitzvah. Isn't that right, Hesh?" Patrick said, looking at the man.

Hesh turned to look at Sam and smiled before turning back to Patrick.

"Thanks again, Patrick." He said with a happy grin.

"Shalom, my friend. Shalom." Patrick nodded.

Hesh got up to leave as Patrick shuffled his cards.

"That was nice of you." Sam commented.

"I'm a nice guy. What can I do you for?" he asked, looking up as he continued to shuffle.

Sam sat down and looked him square in the face.

"Deal." He said.

Patrick smirked.

* * *

"Jawbone of a murderer. Great." Dean huffed as he and Elena dug in the grave.

She rolled her eyes as he stuck the shovel in the dirt, breathing hard.

"You know, this really sucks. How do we even know her spell's gonna work?" Dean grumbled.

"We don't. But we ain't got a Plan B. Now, less flappin' and more diggin'." Bobby shot back.

Dean moved tho shovel another scoop when something cracked. Elena turned to him with wide eyes.

"Oh, God!" he moaned.

Elena looked up in time to see Bobby roll his eyes.

"My elbows! I'm all creaky." Dean whined.

"Hurry up, you crybaby." Bobby said.

"Pound it up your ass, Ironsides." Dean shot back.

"One little grave." Bobby scoffed.

"Then you do it." Dean fired back.

"Fine. I'll hop right in."

"Well, least your legs are numb."

"Shut up and dig, Grandpa." Elena said, cutting off their annoying arguing.

"Why don't you tell me to hurry up, Bobby?" she asked, leaning against her shovel as she took a break for a moment.

"Cause you're too pretty to order around." he said with a smirk.

"Aw, thanks Bobby." Elena said with a grin.

"Oh! Now it's my back!" Dean whimpered as he continued to dig.

"Can you straighten up?" Bobby asked.

Dean tested it out.

"Yeah, but a little sympathy wouldn't hurt." He grumbled.

"Butt cheek tingling?" the older hunter questioned.

"Well, that's kind of personal." Dean said, avoiding Elena's amused expression.

"So yeah?" Bobby nodded.

Dean looked up at him with a glare.

"It's sciatica. You'll live. Keep digging." He snapped.

"You know, Bobby, killing you is officially on my bucket list." Dean said grumpily.

* * *

"I like you, Sam. I do. You're smart, and your heart's clearly in the right place." Patrick said as they played.

Sam didn't answer, instead focusing intensly on his cards.

"I can tell a lot about a guy by looking." He said as he threw his toothpick on the table.

"You mean you're psychic." Sam said, looking up at him.

"No. That'd be cheating. I'm talking about good old-fashioned intuition." Patrick said with a smirk.

"Right. Let's just play." Sam said skeptically.

Patrick took a sip of his whiskey.

"We are playing." He shrugged. "Does your big brother know you're here?"

"Bet five." Sam answered, dropping five chips on the pile, taking more away from his own dwindling stack.

"Didn't think so." Patrick nodded, calling his bet and raising another five.

"I raise. Here you are, right? Trying to clean up their mess, and they still want to sit you at the kiddie table." He said, shaking his head. "You're not the little brother anymore, Sam."

Sam looked up at him with a blank look.

"Then again, maybe you are. You're in over your head here, Sam. I mean, you can keep making these moves… you know, playing it cautious, playing the percentages. But I'm still gonna kick your ass into the nursing home." Patrick said with a smirk.

"Does this armchair-psychology routine usually work for you?" Sam snapped.

Patrick laughed, shaking his head.

"You tell me. You're the one who's losing." He shrugged, gesturing to Sam's pile.

Patrick chewed on his toothpick as they continued their game. A few minutes later, when Sam was down to twenty chips, Lia came in and kissed Patrick. The Irishman looked over at Sam and winked.

"Little break?" he asked.

* * *

Elena looked up as Sam walked out of the elevator and up to her.

"How's it going in there?" she asked, holding her hand out.

"How do you think it's going?" he scoffed.

"Well this is why I said this was a bad idea." She shot back.

He shook his head.

"What about you? You have everything you need?" he asked.

"We still need a little DNA." She said, holding her hand out.

"He was chewing it." Sam said, handing her a toothpick.

"Hurry up, Elena. Please." He said desperately.

"All right. Just keep him busy. And, Sam... don't lose." Elena said pleadingly, turning to walk off.

* * *

"Question." Patrick said after they'd been playing for another ten minutes. "Is this what you meant to give that little girl of yours?"

He held up a toothpick. Sam didn't let his expression change as Lia flicked a glance at the toothpick.

"The one you gave her never passed my lips. Won't do a scrap of good." Patrick said, throwing the small piece of wood across the table.

"I don't like cheating, Sam." he said, stretching out his hand and clenching his fist.

Sam stiffened, gasping for breath, as Lia watched. A hand flew to his throat as he fought for air.

"Stop it!" Lia exclaimed, grabbing Patrick's wrist. "Patrick, let him go!"

"He tried to kill us!" Patrick snapped.

"I did it! I gave him the spell!" she said.

Patrick released the spell and turned to her, shocked.

"What?" he breathed, standing up to touch Lia's face.

"Why... why would you do that?" he sighed.

"You know why." She said, touching her silver locket again.

Patrick looked away for a moment before sitting down.

"Keep playing." He snapped.

Sam glanced up at Lia as she looked away.

* * *

"I don't get it. Everything we put in that spell was kosher." Bobby said as Elena drove them down the road towards the apartment building.

"Yeah, everything except the damn toothpick." Dean snapped.

"You got to go get a speck of DNA. Strap on your track shoes." Bobby said.

"Oh, goody. More stairs." Dean said.

Dean remained on the phone as they searched around Patrick and Lia's apartment.

"It's too damn clean in here. First witch I ever heard of didn't spew bodily fluids all over the place." he growled, searching the couch cushions as Elena looked around the kitchen.

"Toothbrush, comb… anything." She heard Bobby said desperately.

* * *

"Well, look at you… the percentage player betting the farm. Awful transparent of you, Sam. I mean, if I had a monster hand like you have, I'd trap you. But you get so excited, you bet yourself right out of a big pot." Patrick said as he watched Sam stack up five more chips.

He sniffed and picked up his cards.

"I fold." He announced, discarding them.

"Set of ladies, I'm guessing." He said.

Sam collected the chips and turned over his cards, three of clubs and five of diamonds.

"Nice bluff. If we had time, I could make a real player out of you." Patrick nodded.

"I got time." Sam deadpanned.

Patrick grinned. "Maybe. But I can't say the same for Dean. Your brother's gonna be dead soon."

Sam looked up at him.

"And when I say soon..." he leaned forward. "… I mean minutes."

Sam expression turned fearful and he stood up quickly. Patrick extended a fist and yanked him back to sitting down with witchcraft.

"The game's not over till I say it is. Blinds." He growled angrily.

* * *

Elena walked out of the bathroom just in time to see Dean put a hand over his heart and crumple to the ground.

"Sam..." he said weakly.

"Dean!" she cried, running to him.

He slumped in her arms, groaning painfully.

* * *

"So." Patrick said, slapping down three cards and spreading them out.

He had the ace of spades and fours of hearts and clubs. Sam eyed the cards but didn't betray any emotion.

"When it's about your brother, you get so emotional, your brain just flies right out the window." He said, illustrating with a hand gesture.

"Good to know." He shrugged.

"Go to hell." Sam snapped, shoving all of his chips into the middle. "I'm all in."

Lia glanced at him as Patrick sighed, checking his cards.

"Don't do that, Sam." he said pleadingly.

"I can't leave until it's over? Fine. It's over. Now, where's my brother?" Sam demanded.

"Look, there's poker and then there's suicide." Patrick said.

"Just play the hand." Sam fired back.

* * *

"Dean? Dean, you there?" Elena heard Bobby saying over the phone as she attempted to heal Dean of whatever was happening.

Whatever it was wasn't healable. It was natural and apparently she couldn't heal old age. Tears streamed down her face as he groaned in her arms.

Patrick added all of his chips to the pot.

* * *

"Fine." He sighed, discarding a card.

They stared each other down, Sam worried and Patrick smug.

* * *

Elena let out a cry of panic as Dean grew still in her arms.

"No!" she screamed, putting her hands on his chest and concentrating in full.

Warmth finally flowed through her hands and she felt it flowing out into his body. For the first time ever, a white light filled the room as she did so.

* * *

"I'm sorry, kid. Aces full." Patrick said, turning over his cards.

Sam looked down at his cards then looked up at Lia.

"You're crying." Sam said to the woman.

She looked away as Sam and Patrick watched her.

"For a witch, you're so nice, it's actually kind of creepy. It's okay." He sighed, looking back at Patrick. "It was a great hand."

Patrick moved to collect the chips, knowing that only very few hands could beat his full house with three aces.

"Just…" Sam stopped him.

Patrick looked up.

"… not as great as…"

He turned over his cards to reveal four of a kind.

"… as four fours." He said.

Patrick glanced up at Sam and down at the cards. Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Patrick leaned back, looking impressed.

"Well played. You know, that whole... going-out-of-your-head bit… very method." He nodded.

Sam smirked.

"Well, there's more to you than meets the eye." Patrick said, raising his glass in a salute.

"Cash these in for Dean, please." Sam said, pushing the coins towards him.

Patrick nodded, setting down the glass.

"With pleasure." He nodded.

* * *

Elena looked down with shock as the white light cut off and Dean woke up underneath her, young again. She stared at him in shock, his green eyes looking back up at her. Suddenly he was sitting up and yanking her to him.

"I'm young again." He said.

"Yes." She nodded, trying to wipe the tears away.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he whispered, alarmed.

"You died. In my arms. You died." She wailed.

"I'm fine." He said, laughing as he pulled her in.

She shook her head and embraced him tightly. Suddenly he pulled away and looked at her.

"I'm young again." He said, smirking.

Elena barely had time to react before he was kissing her much like he had against the bar door. She responded in kind, straddling his waist as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"We should go out there so that Bobby knows you're alive." She whispered.

"Ugh." Dean groaned as she pulled them up.

"I'll get you a bacon cheeseburger." She assured him.

They walked out of the apartment building and Dean did a little dance for Bobby to show the older hunter that he was young again.

* * *

"I can't do this, Lia." Patrick sighed, shaking his head.

"Yes, you can." She replied as she sat down at the table.

"Don't make me. I don't want to win." He refused.

Lia opened her locket to reveal two pictures.

"I buried my daughter." She said sadly. "And she looked like this." Lia pointed to the picture of an elderly woman.

"It's not natural." She sighed, shaking her head as she closed her locket.

"You knew. When you decided to come with me." Patrick said, tears in his eyes. "This is what you wanted. You're still young. You're so beautiful. You have me."

"I miss my family. I'm sorry, Patrick." She said, looking down.

"I thought you loved me."

"I do. Sweetheart, of course I do. I thought I was cut out for this, but I'm not." She said, taking his hand.

"I don't think I can do this without you." he admitted.

"You got on okay for a long time before you met me." Lia said with a soft smile.

"Check." He sighed after a moment.

Lia pushed her stacks of poker chips to the middle.

"All in." she said.

After a long pause, Patrick did the same thing.

"All in."

It wasn't any surprise that he won. Both of them were expecting in.

"Thank you." Lia sighed as she rapidly aged in front of him.

* * *

"No tricks… you actually beat the guy?" Bobby asked as they stood outside the motel.

Sam grinned and spread his arms.

"How the hell?" Bobby asked.

"Just lucky." He shrugged, heading for the door.

"I wouldn't!" Bobby said, stopping him.

"Why?" Sam asked.

"I think they're celebrating Dean's newfound youth." He said, rolling his eyes just as they heard a muffled moan from in the door.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Fine, I'll see you later." He said, turning to walk off.

"Where you going?" Bobby asked.

"Uh... mm, nowhere."

The older hunter just stared at him.

"A booster shot. Don't say it." Sam snapped.

"Well, I guess I'll wait here." Bobby sighed, looking at the door.

* * *

"Oh my God! You are… fucking amazing!" Dean said, throwing his head back and shuddering in pleasure.

Elena giggled, reaching out to wipe some sauce off of the corner of his mouth.

"Only because I let you get two bacon cheeseburgers." She said.

"Nah, that's just one of many reasons." He said, running his hand up her bare leg.

They'd enjoyed the pleasures that his re-found youth brought and now they were curled up in the bed, Elena wearing Dean's t-shirt and nothing else and Dean wearing boxers and nothing else, eating cheeseburgers.

"I like you better when you're not a grumpy old man." Elena informed him, leaning forward to kiss him as he took another bite of burger.

"Only cause I can keep up with you now." He said, flipping her over and kissing her deeply as he held the cheeseburger high in the air so it wouldn't get damaged.

She laughed against his lips before kissing him back with fervor.

* * *

"I shouldn't have called you an idiot." Dean said as they packed up the Impala.

"Which time?" Bobby grumbled.

"I'm sorry. I mean, I actually… I, I… I get it. Getting old ain't a bachelor party. And dealing with the crap you got to deal with…" Dean stammered as Elena and Sam stood a little ways away.

"Don't you go on pity patrol." Bobby snapped.

"I'm not. I'm not. I'm just... I'm saying, you know, if I was in your shoes..." Dean said.

"You'd never stop complaining." The older hunter scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Fair enough. You're not useless, Bobby." Dean said.

"Okay. Good talk." He said, turning to roll away.

Dean stepped into his path.

"No, wait a minute. Listen to me." he sighed. "You don't stop being a soldier 'cause you got wounded in battle. Okay? No matter what shape you're in, bottom line is, you're family. I don't know if you've noticed, but me and Sam, we don't have much left. I can't do this without you. I can't. So don't you dare think about checking out. I don't want to hear that again." He snapped.

There was a long silence.

"Okay." Bobby nodded.

"Okay. Good." Dean nodded as well.

"Thanks. Now, we done feeling our feelings? 'Cause I'd like to get out of this town before we both start growing lady parts." Bobby snapped.

"Yeah, we're done." Dean nodded. "Let's go, Ironsides." He said, patting the van that Bobby was in.

"Oh, that one's sticking, huh?" Bobby asked as Elena and Sam walked up to them.

Dean simply grinned and shrugged.

* * *

**I hope you liked it!**


	8. What I Want, You've Got

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thank you to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Chapter Title: You Make My Dreams - Hall & Oates**

**A few things:**

**1. I tried to make this chapter light-hearted. I hope it worked.**

**2. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**3. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

"Really? Nothing?" Dean said, leaning over Bobby's desk.

"Nothing ya idjit. Now back off." Bobby said, pushing him away.

Elena sat on the couch with her head on Sam's shoulder as he read a book.

"We haven't had a case in over a week. There isn't anything weird going on? No signs of the apocalypse or anything?" Dean sighed, walking away from the desk with frustration and worry all over his face.

"No!" Bobby snapped.

Elena rolled her eyes at Dean's impatience but she was worried too. They were conditioned into thinking that when it was quiet, it was bad. Castiel was still out on his hunt for God and she hadn't seen Gabriel since he helped her out of jail. Her senses told her that there was something big coming and she thought that she knew exactly what that big thing was. She had a month left. A month until Zachariah's offer was up. Dean and Sam still didn't know about the threat that hung over her head. Elena felt more and more, every day, that her time with the Winchester brothers was running out.

It was affecting her. She would lie in bed for hours in the motel room staring at Dean as he slept, trying to commit his face to memory. Sometimes she would even watch Sam, unsure of whether she would ever be able to talk to her (for all intents and purposes) adoptive big brother ever again. She would put on a good act when they were awake. If there was anything she'd learned, it was to be a good actress. Now, with one month left, she committed herself to making the most of that month. She was going to make sure that every moment that she had left with the brothers was good. She also wanted to make sure that they could depend on each other if she was truly taken away from them. If they didn't have her, they needed to be able to depend on each other for someone to lean on, even if they would never admit it. So she was working her ass off on getting their relationship as good as she could get it.

Elena sighed and sat up, looking around Bobby's house that had become filthy again in her extended absence.

"If you really want something to do, you can help me." she decided, turning to walk to the kitchen where she stored all of the cleaning supplies that she left behind.

"Help you what?" Dean asked warily as he walked in behind her.

"Go put on your ratty clothing. We're gonna clean this place." she said, setting the supplies in the middle of the kitchen.

"I don't clean." Dean said, shaking his head as he backed away from her with his hands up defensively.

Elena narrowed her eyes at him.

"Me, super strong guardian. You, human who is, as of now, my bitch. Go get dressed." Elena said, pointing at the stairs.

He glared at her but she shook her head and grabbed his hand, dragging him up the stairs. She could hear Sam laughing and she stopped short.

"You too, Sam!" she announced and his laughter quickly ended.

She caught sight of Dean's satisfied smirk out of the corner of her eye as they walked up the rest of the way.

"Why do we have to clean?" Dean demanded as he stood in the middle of the room and she sorted through her clothing.

"Because it will help Bobby." Elena shot back, turning to look at him expectantly.

"That's not fair." He accused her.

She walked to him and slid his flannel shirt off of his shoulders, looking up at him.

"Please?" she requested, her eyes pleading.

Dean sighed.

"You know I can't say no when you have that face." he said.

"I know." She said, smiling as she pulled his t-shirt over his head and pushing him back to the bed.

"What happened to cleaning?" He asked, grinning as he was satisfied with what the situation had turned into.

Elena simply grinned and walked to the bed, pulling off her own shirt and sliding up his body to press a kiss just over his navel. He sighed and his head fell back as she peppered wet, open-mouthed kisses all over his torso, her hands exploring it as well.

"This…" she breathed, pulling him up to a sitting position as she settled on his lap. "… is a preview as to what you will get if you help me clean."

He groaned as her lips pressed to his softly before she slid off of his lap.

"That's… not nice." Dean complained as he watched her pull her pants off and quickly change into clothing that was appropriate for cleaning.

"I'll be nice later." Elena said with a wink.

Once they got downstairs, Sam was waiting with a scowl and ratty clothing on.

"Bobby, you mind if we clean around you?" Elena asked as she walked to the radio that was set up in the dining room.

"Nah this place could use a…" he was cut off by loud music drowning him out.

Elena turned to grin at them and quickly changed the station. A grin grew on Dean's face. Sam shook his head as Elena walked to the cleaning supplies and began handing them out, yelling their duties over the music. They started on the kitchen, Elena dancing around shamelessly to the rock music blaring out of the speakers. Bobby stared them with an unamused expression, rolling his eyes when Dean began to (attempt) to sing along.

"I got to have a shot… of what you got it's oh so sweet!" the older Winchester brother sang as Elena danced around the kitchen.

"You got to make it hot… like a boomerang I need a repeat!" She sang back, grinning at him.

Sam shook his head as he wiped down the table but he couldn't help but smile at them. It almost felt like before everything happened. Elena threw down her rag and ran up to Dean, laughing when he dropped his broom and caught her, twirling her around.

"Gimme all your lovin'! All your hugs and kisses too!" they shouted together, laughing as they sang dramatically.

Even Bobby couldn't hide his smile at the glee on their faces. Dean put Elena down and she didn't waste a second before skipping over to Sam, holding out her hands.

"Dance with me?" she asked.

"That isn't cleaning." He reminded her.

She barely had to push her lower lip out before he was taking her hand and twirling her around, much to her delight.

"You got to whip it up… and hit me like a ton of lead!" Sam sang before he could help it and Elena grinned up at him as they danced around the kitchen.

"Gimme all your lovin'! All your hugs and kisses too!" She sang as she twirled right into Dean's arms.

"Gimme all your lovin'! Don't let up until you do!" Dean sang back, whirling her around to gather in his arms and lift her off the ground, whirling them around as her laughter filled the house, making the other three smile widely.

It was moments like this that the three hunters were most grateful to have Elena in their lives. Because beyond the apocalypse and demons and every other bad thing out there, she could give them these moments. She could make them laugh and forget that the world was a horrible place sometimes. Suddenly Sam's phone chirped on the table and they all stopped, looking back at it as their smiles fell. Then the world chose to remind them that it was still there and waiting to destroy their good moments.

* * *

"Jesus!" Elena complained as they squealed around the corner and into the parking lot of the Pineview Hotel.

She peeled herself away from the window where she'd slammed into it on the sharp turn and Dean looked back at her sympathetically.

"Sorry. But we were told to hurry." He shrugged.

"Yeah, but not at the expense of Elena's head." She grumbled, quickly healing herself of the throbbing headache she had now.

Dean stopped short in a parking spot and they all jumped out, Sam in the lead as they ran through the parking lot. Elena and Dean stopped short when they caught sight of three other black Impalas parked in the parking lot. They shared a confused look. As they ran up to the hotel, they quickly caught sight of a familiar face. He was pacing and looked extremely nervous but that was normal for the prophet.

"Chuck! There you are." Sam sighed as they ran up to him.

"Guys?" he said, his surprise making Elena suspicious of what was really going on.

"What's going on?" Dean questioned as they stood around him, staring at him expectantly.

"Ah, nothing. You know, I'm just kinda hanging. What are you guys doing here?" he asked, looking completely confused.

"You told us to come." Dean said as if it was obvious.

"Ah, no I didn't." Chuck said, staring at the three of them with a panicked expression.

"Yeah you did, you texted me. This address, life or death situation. Any of this ringing a bell?" Sam demanded, staring him down with a hint of frustration in his voice.

"I didn't send you a text." Chuck denied vehemently.

Elena looked around, wondering exactly what was going on. Why was Chuck at a random hotel?

"We drove all night!" Dean snapped.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand what could... oh no." he said, his eyes widening.

"What?" Elena said, wondering what he just realized.

"Sam! You made it!" They heard a female voice squeal.

They turned to see the girl that had brought them Chuck's prophecy about the Michael sword standing at the top of the stairs with a wide-eyed and thrilled look on her face. She ran down to stand in front of Sam, doing what Elena could only describe as an 'I need to pee' dance.

"Oh, ah, Becky, right?" Sam asked, wary of her as he remembered the way she'd refused to stop touching him the last time they met her.

"Oh, you remembered." She sighed dreamily.

"You been thinking about me." Becky said in a lower voice.

"I..." Sam began, looking at Dean and Elena for help.

Both of them shook their head and stepped away, refusing to take part in this situation.

"It's ok, I can't get you out of my head either." She said with a creepy grin.

"Becky, did you take my phone?" Chuck demanded.

"I just borrowed it from your pants." She shrugged carelessly before turning her attention back on the younger Winchester.

"Becky..." Chuck sighed, shaking his head.

"What? They're going to want to see it!" Becky exclaimed, doing the same dance again.

"See what?" Sam and Dean asked at the same time.

"Oh My God. I love it when they talk at the same time!" she squealed.

Then her attention focused on Elena.

"Oh it is so good to see you! Especially when I know who you are now! Dean and Sam's guardian! It's so poetic! Especially since you and Dean are… well you know." She said, taking Elena by surprise.

They turned to look at Chuck but were interrupted by asking what the hell was going on when a guy appeared with a clipboard at the top of the stairs leading into the hotel.

"Hey Chuck? Come on pal, it's showtime." He said.

Becky let out a screech of happiness and turned to run up the stairs.

"I'm sorry. For everything." Chuck said to them before turning to walk up the stairs.

They looked at each other, all confused, before following him in. As they walked in, Elena immediately realized what was happening. Especially when she saw a girl with hair that matched hers perfectly and she was holding hands with a guy who was dressed like Dean. Unfortunately, the brothers were slower on the uptake.

A large man walked past them with a beer in his hand and stopped, looking Dean up and down.

"Ha-ha-ha. Hey Dean, looking good." He said, patting his shoulder before walking past.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean demanded, wanting to know how this man knew who he was.

"I'm Dean too. Duh." He scoffed before turning to walk away.

Dean turned to Sam, looking utterly confused. They caught sight of a demented scarecrow and Dean jumped, causing Sam to turn and do the same.

"Uh-oh. It's Sam and Dean. I'm in trouble now." The scarecrow said as he passed.

"Have fun you two. Aaaah!" he yelled, gesturing towards Sam with the scythe he was carrying before turning to walk off.

Sam glared at the man dressed up before turning to Dean. Becky giggled from where she was standing behind them.

"What?" Dean whispered, astounded.

"Becky… what is this?" Sam demanded as they caught sight of a man with yellow contacts that matched the yellow-eyed demon's eyes perfectly.

"It's awesome! A Supernatural convention, the first ever." Becky said, clapping her hands.

They turned to stare at each other, unsure of exactly what she was saying. Elena felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see the girl standing there that she thought had her hair.

"My Elena outfit is much better than yours." She informed her, making Elena's eyes widen even further.

"Your… what?" she said, looking at the girl's slutty clothing.

"Your costume. It's pathetic. Where did you get it?" the girl asked, her high-pitched voice and words already annoying to Elena.

"I don't know. When I went shopping." Elena said, uncomfortable with the situation.

"Where did you get your wig?" the girl asked, reaching out and tugging on Elena's hair.

"Ow!" Elena complained, slapping her hand away.

"It's not a wig! God I wish I thought of dye-ing my hair!" she complained, looking unhappy.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Elena demanded, irritated now.

"God, the least you can do is stay in character. Elena isn't such a bitch. I'm better than you even if I am wearing a wig." The girl said, rolling her eyes.

Elena stared at her with a stunned expression as Dean and Sam fought back their laughter. The girl turned to look at them.

"Well at least you have a good Dean and Sam. But I have a Castiel." The fake Elena said, gesturing to a pudgy man that walked up wearing a tan overcoat.

He looked nothing like Castiel and Elena was getting more and more freaked out.

"So while you get to act out the hot sex scenes with just the brothers, I get to have all three." The slutty girl said, winking at her.

"Oh God, what?" Elena choked out as Dean's expression went from amused to no longer happy.

"Oh come on. Like everyone doesn't know what Elena does with Castiel when they're alone." The girl rolled her eyes again. "No two people have that much chemistry without doing it."

Elena was truly traumatized by now, unable to believe that this girl was suggesting that she was having sex with Cas. She turned to glare at Sam, who was turning red with embarrassment, and Dean, who was pissed, before dragging them into the auditorium. She was slowly beginning to figure out what was going on and she was going to have a few words with Chuck about it.

"Welcome to the first annual Supernatural convention." The man with the clipboard announced, making everyone cheer.

"At 3.45 in the Magnolia room we have the panel, Frightened little boy, the secret life of Dean. And at 4.30 there's the homoerotic subtext of Supernatural." Elena looked between Sam and Dean, who all of the sudden looked traumatized.

"Oh, and of course the big hunt starts at 7pm sharp." More cheers and applause filled the room.

"But right now, right now I'd like to introduce the man himself. The creator, the writer of the supernatural books. The one, the only, Carver Edlund!" he said, walked off of the stage as Chuck walked on timidly.

His eyes flickered to them, taking in their not-too-happy looks and swallowing hard.

"Ok. Ok good, this isn't nearly as awkward as I…" Chuck trailed off, clearing his throat.

"Dry mouth." He said, grabbing a bottle of water off of a table behind him.

There was total silence in the room as he drank quickly.

"Ok. Uh... ahem. So I guess... questions?" he said hoarsely.

Every hand in the room shot up and Chuck looked startled.

"Uh... you?" he said questioningly, pointing at a man in the front row who was dressed as Sam.

"Hey, Mr Edlund. Uh... big fan. I was just wondering, where'd you come up with Sam and Dean in the first place?" the man asked, grinning.

Chuck's eyes flickered to them again and Dean and Sam cocked their heads to the side, interested to hear his answer to that question.

"Oh, ah, I... it just came to me." he stammered.

Sam scoffed quietly as Dean pursed his lips and titled his head back. Hands shot into the air once again and Elena glared up at Chuck.

"Ok. Yeah. The hook man." Chuck said, pointing to the man.

"Ah yeah. Why in every fight scene, Sam and Dean are having their gun knocked away by the bad guy? Why don't they keep it on some kind of bungee?" the next man asked with a heavy accent.

"I... yeah, I really don't know." Chuck said, confused by the answer as Dean shifted beside Elena, obviously getting more and more pissed off.

"Ja, follow up. You leave last book off with Sam beating Dean up and going to kill Lilith. Why can't Sam be telling that Ruby is evil? I mean she is clearly manipulating Sam into some kind of moral lapse. It's obvious, nien?" he asked, scoffing.

They all looked pissed now and Chuck looked down at his feet because he knew exactly why. As far as they knew, his last book ended with Dean going to hell. Elena gritted her teeth as she realized that she must have been in Chuck's books now and that was why there was a slutty woman pathetically dressed like her.

Becky stomped up the aisle, glaring at the man who asked the question.

"Hey! If you don't like the books don't read em Fritz." She hissed.

"Ok, Ok, just… okay, it's okay. So… next question." Chuck stammered nervously, unable to ignore the glares that Sam, Dean, and Elena were sending to him.

"Yeah… you." he said, pointing at a girl this time.

"Yeah, at the end of the last book, Dean and Elena have sex. What's going to happen between them next?"

Elena's hand shot out and grasped Dean's, making him grunt painfully.

"I'm going to kill him." she growled softly as Dean tried to slide his hand out of her grip.

"As long as you don't kill my hand first." He said pleadingly, as pissed as her but unable to show it as he was pretty sure she was crushing his hand.

She loosened her grip and quickly healed the few bones that she'd cracked in the process of accidentally taking her anger out on him.

"Oh. Well there lies an announcement, actually. You're all going to find out." Chuck said as they glared at him. "Thanks to a wealthy Scandinavian investor, as you well know since we've published one new book so far… we're going to start publishing regularly again."

The room suddenly erupted, everyone jumping out of their seats to cheer happily. Elena's eyes narrowed at Chuck as he looked around nervously.

* * *

Elena stomped up to the table where Chuck and Becky were sitting, uncaring of his pathetic attempt to ask the fan on a date. Sam and Dean were following her closely.

"Oh, hi Sam!" Becky exclaimed as they reached the table.

Sam nodded at Becky distractedly as Elena squatted next to Chuck.

"Excuse us." Dean said to Becky, leaning over the other side of Chuck's chair that Elena wasn't at.

Chuck looked very scared to have them on either side of him with fury blazing in their eyes.

"In case you haven't noticed, our plates are kind of full, ok? Finding the Colt, hunting the devil. We don't have time for this crap." Dean growled.

"Hey, I didn't call you!" Chuck protested.

"He means the books, Chuck. Why are you publishing more books?" Sam demanded.

"And why am I in them?" Elena snapped.

"Um... for food and shelter?" Chuck said in a small voice.

"Who gave you the rights to our life story?" Dean murmured, keeping it down.

"An archangel, and I didn't want it!" Chuck argued.

"Well, deal's off, ok. No more books. Our lives are not for public consumption." Sam said, glancing at Becky weirdly as she kept giving him come hither looks.

"Ah… Becky. Would you excuse us for just a second?" Chuck asked.

"Uh-huh!" she nodded quickly.

As soon as they were alone in a room, Elena slammed Chuck against the wall and held her arm against his throat, not quite choking him but close enough so that he could.

"Elena!" Dean protested, trying to pull her away from him to no avail.

"What have you published about me, Chuck?" she demanded.

"Not much! I promise!" he said, struggling against her hold.

"Really? Because those people out there sure seem to know quite a bit about my sex life." Elena snapped, pushing her arm against his throat.

"I kept you mysterious for a reason! It brings more mystery to the story." He choked out.

"What did you write about my family? And my friends? Did you write anything that could put them in danger?" she demanded.

She felt violated because of the sex thing but she would be murderous if he put her brother in danger.

"No! Like I said, you're the mysterious guardian." He assured her, his eyes wide.

Elena finally pulled away from him and let go, backing away and shaking her head.

"You had no right." she said, pointing at him as Dean took her hand comfortingly.

"Do you guys know what I do for a living?" Chuck said hoarsely, looking around at them with wide eyes.

"Yeah Chuck, we know." Sam snapped.

"Then could you tell me? Cause I don't, all right? I'm not a good writer. I've got no marketable skills. I'm not some hero who can just hit the road and fight monsters, Ok? Until the world ends, I gotta live, all right? And the Supernatural books are all I've got. What else do you want me to do?" He said desperately.

Suddenly a woman screamed and distracted them from their interrogation of the prophet. Sam and Dean stared at Chuck for a minute before taking off towards the sound with Elena hot on their heels.

"No, guys... wait!" Chuck yelled after them.

Elena hung back as she watched Sam and Dean run up the stairs with several other convention people following them.

"Hey, are you ok?" Sam asked as he helped a maid up.

"I think so." she said, sounding confused.

"What happened?" Dean asked, slipping into hunter mode.

"I saw a ghost." She whimpered.

"A ghost? Could you tell us what it looked like?" One of the convention guys asked in a deep voice that Elena had a feeling was meant to be Dean.

"Why don't you leave this to the grownups pal?" Dean snapped.

"A woman. She was in an old fashioned dress. Really old. Like a school marm, or something?" the maid explained.

"Did she say something to you?" Another man asked.

Suddenly the maid's voice slipped into a dramatic tone.

"Gather close everybody, for a terrifying tale of terror. I saw, a ghost!" she proclaimed.

Elena rolled her eyes as the brothers walked back down the stairs.

"None other than the ghost of Leticia Gore herself! I was on the third floor getting ice for a guest..." Elena blocked the maid out as she turned to them with an exasperated expression.

"Oooo, the LARPing's started." Becky exclaimed as she ran up to them.

"The... what is that again?" Dean asked.

"Live Action Role Playing? It's a game. The convention puts it on." Becky explained, handing Sam a piece of paper with loving eyes.

"Dad's Journal. Dear Sam and Dean, this hotel is haunted. You must hunt down the ghost. Interview witnesses, discover clues, and find the bones. First team to do so wins a $50 gift card to Sizzler. Love Dad." He read off of the paper.

Dean and Sam both frowned down at the paper as Elena rolled her eyes once again.

"You guys are so gonna win." Becky said with a grin.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, men and women all dressed in black suits were crowded in the lobby surrounding the man with the clipboard.

"Well yes Agents Lennon and McCartney, as manager of this fine establishment I can assure you that it is indeed haunted. This building was once an orphanage, run by mean old Leticia Gore. 100 years ago this very night, Miss Gore went insane, and butchered four little boys before killing herself. Now folks say that the souls of those poor little boys are trapped here and the evil spirit of Miss Gore punishes them to this very day." He said dramatically.

"Well that's just about all the community theatre I can take." Dean snapped as they watched the dramatics.

"Yeah, this cannot get any weirder." Sam scoffed.

Two men walked by, one of them being the overweight Dean that they saw earlier.

"Dad said... he said I may have to kill you." the fake Dean said, trying to be serious but utterly failing.

"Kill me? What the hell does that mean?" the fake Sam asked.

Elena stared at them with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't know." Fake Dean replied.

"Oh..." Fake Sam replied.

They turned and continued to walk off.

Sam and Dean looked at Elena before looking at each other.

"I need a drink." They said in unison.

* * *

Elena stared at her beer along with Sam as Dean downed a shot of whiskey.

"For the last time I'm not making this up, ok? She's upstairs, a real live dead ghost." A voice cut through their thoughts, causing them to turn to see a man with blood running down his face talking desperately to his face.

Dean immediately got up and walked over, Sam and Elena following him.

"I'm sure it was just one of the ghost actors." The man's friend said.

"Who beat the hell out of me and then vanished?" the injured man demanded.

"You saw something?" Sam asked.

"This isn't part of the game jerk." He snapped before turning back to his friend. "Look, I'm getting out of here and you should do the same."

He turned to walk off with them watching.

"Alex, wait. Hey, come back." the other guy yelled, following him.

"What do you think?" Sam asked, turning to them.

"I don't think that guy's a good enough an actor to be acting." Dean said with a frown.

"Why yes agents Jagger and Richards. As manager of this fine establishment I can assure you it is indeed haunted." They heard the man with the clipboard giving his speech once again.

A scowl took over Elena's face as they approached the desk of the hotel. She wanted nothing more than to get out of there but it looked like there might have been an actual haunting now.

"Excuse us, mind if we ask you a few questions?" Dean asked the actual manager of the hotel.

"Look, I don't have time to play Star Wars guys. Go ask the guy in the ascot." The man scoffed.

Dean reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, sliding a $50 across the counter.

"Actually we ah... really want to talk to you." he sighed.

"Okay. You guys are really into this." the manager said, taking the bill off of the counter quickly.

"You have no idea." Sam sighed.

"What do you want to know?"

"All this stuff they're saying. This place being haunted. Leticia Gore. Any truth to it?" Dean questioned.

"We generally don't like to publicize this to... normal people... but yeah. 1909 this place was called Gore Orphanage. Miss Gore, killed four boys with a butchers knife, then offed herself." he explained.

"And is tonight really her anniversary?" Elena asked.

The man's eyes flickered to her and he looked surprised to see her standing there.

"Yep, guess your convention folks want authenticity." He nodded.

"There been any sightings?" Sam asked.

"Yep, over the years. A few maids have quit saying they heard the boys or saw them. A janitor even saw Miss Gore once." The manager informed them.

"Where did Miss Gore carve up the kids?" Dean asked.

The manager balked, shaking his head.

"Look, I don't want you stomping all over the joint. A lot of this place is off limits to nerds." He said.

Dean slid another $50 across the table.

"The attic." He whispered.

Elena turned to see the same fake Sam and Dean that she'd been seeing everywhere standing behind them. They caught sight of her and, when she narrowed her eyes at them, turned to scurry off.

"You two go up. I'm gonna keep an eye on those guys. They were listening in on us and I have a feeling that they might get themselves into trouble." Elena said, suspicious of the men.

"All right." Sam and Dean said, turning to walk to the attic.

* * *

Sam was holding the EMF as they walked through the attic with flashlights. The device suddenly started buzzing like crazy.

"The EMF's going nuts." Sam said, looking up.

"Great. We got a real ghost, and we got a bunch of dudes pretending to be us poking at it." Dean scoffed, glaring around at the attic.

"No way this ends well." Sam nodded.

"Yeah well serves them right." the older brother sighed.

"Dean..." Sam began to berate him.

"I'm just saying." Dean defended himself as they continued looking.

* * *

"It's gotta be around here someplace." The fake Dean, who Elena figured out was Damien, said as they walked down the hallway on the very top floor that was just below the attic.

Elena was creeping behind them silently, her heels in her hands so that she would make no noise. It was hard with the creaky floorboards.

"Yeah I dunno man. No one else is looking for the attic." Fake Sam, or Barnes, said in a normal voice.

"Ok, all right, dude. 1. Stay in character. All right? If it's just me, I look stupid. and 2. You heard the guy downstairs. I think this is part of the game." Damien said.

"Help us." Elena's head snapped back as she stepped back into the shadows and she saw a little boy standing there.

"Oh my God! That make up is amazing." Barnes exclaimed.

"Amateur. Stay in character!" Damien snapped as they walked forward.

"Sorry." Barnes said in a deeper voice.

"Help us. Miss Gore won't let us have any fun." The little boy said.

Elena cursed quietly. She had her handgun tucked into her jacket with iron bullets in case she needed it but the salt rounds and shotguns were in the car.

"Where's the body buried kid? We'll light her up nice and toasty." Damien offered.

Elena rolled her eyes at his cluelessness. How could they possibly think this wasn't a ghost? The little boy pointed behind them. They turned just in time for him to disappear.

"Wow. Fast runner." Barnes remarked when they turned back around.

Elena squinted in the direction where the boy pointed and noticed something on the wall. She darted out of the shadows before they could notice it too.

"Hey! Aren't you with those other guys?" Damien demanded, staring at her.

Elena searched for something to say.

"They were… uh… amateurs. We just got hooked up when I, um… showed up at the convention. You two seem… better?" she stammered her way through an explanation.

"Well obviously." Damien scoffed.

She fought back a grimace and pasted a smile on her face.

"I'd rather join you. Play the… um… Elena… to your Dean and Sam." she said.

"Dude, that's totally great!" Barnes said, grinning at Damien.

"What do you think you can bring to this that we don't have already?" Damien asked skeptically.

Elena rolled her eyes and walked forward, pushing past them to the painting that was on the wall where the little boy ghost pointed. She moved it aside to reveal the bloody handprint that was half hidden.

"Must have been what he was trying to tell us." Barnes said, his eyes wide as she turned to them.

"Gee you think Sammy?" Damien said, making Elena wince.

She pulled the painting off of the wall and turned it over, revealing that the back was covered in more bloody handprints.

"You didn't notice this… I did." Elena said triumphantly.

"All right, she's allowed." Damien nodded as Barnes ripped the backing off and revealed an old map.

Elena pulled it out and turned to walk past them as she dropped the painting on the ground.

"Where are you going?" Damien demanded.

She turned to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Sam and Dean would discuss this map over a beer." She said, really wanting to get the map downstairs so that she could show it to the real Sam and Dean.

"She's right." Barnes nodded.

"Fine. But Dean would carry the map." Damien said, reaching out towards Elena.

"Elena would kick his ass if he tried to take it from her." she snapped.

"She's right, Elena would do that." Barnes whispered.

"Would you stop?" Damien snapped as they followed Elena down the stairs.

* * *

"My mommy loves me." Sam and Dean whirled around, shining their flashlights on a boy who was crouched in the corner of the attic.

Dean walked up as Sam followed him.

"I said my mommy loves me." he repeated.

"I'm sure she does." Sam said.

"My mommy loves me this much!" he spread his arms to reveal that he had been partially scalped before disappearing.

* * *

Sam sighed as he hung up the phone and the brothers walked into the bar.

"All right. So that was a guy with the County Historical Society." He said.

"And...?" Dean turned to face him.

"Not only did Leticia Gore butcher four boys, but one of them was her own son." Sam explained.

"Her son." Dean said, looking disgusted.

"Yeah. According to the police at the time, she scalped the kid." Sam nodded.

"Oh that's it, I'm gonna deep fry this bitch extra crispy. Dude say where she was buried?" Dean said, looking angry.

"He doesn't know." Sam said, looking around.

They caught sight of Elena sitting at a table with fake Dean and Sam, leaning over something with them. Her eyes lifted and she gestured for them to come over.

"Check it out. There's the orphanage, here's the carriage house, and right there... cemetery." Barnes said as Sam and Dean walked over.

"You think that's where Leticia's planted?" Damien asked.

They both looked over at Elena.

"It's worth a shot." She nodded, sitting up when Dean and Sam walked up behind her.

Sam reached out to snag the map.

"Hey, hey!" Barnes protested.

"Hey, do you mind?" Damien demanded.

"It's real. A century old, at least, and he's right, there is a cemetery on the grounds." Sam said, looking over the map with Dean.

"Where'd you get that?" Dean asked, looking at Elena.

"It's called a game pal. It ain't called charity. Just cause we stole your Elena…"

"Excuse me?" Dean scoffed.

"You did not steal me. I voluntarily switched teams." Elena said, shrugging at Dean and Sam's questioning glances.

Damien snatched the map back from Dean, glaring at him.

"Hey! Gimme the map chuckles." Dean said, glaring at Damien.

"Yeah well you're the chuckles, Chuckles. Besides, Dean don't listen to nobody." Damien said, pulling his jacket back to reveal a plastic gun.

Elena rolled her eyes along with Dean.

"Dean! Cool it." Barnes said.

Dean reached back and pulled out his own, very real gun.

"Dean!" Elena hissed, pushing his hand down.

"What! They're freakin' annoying." He snapped.

"Look, guys. We all wanna find the bones right? We just thought... it would go faster if we all worked together. Especially since Elena is teamed up with you guys now. We could all use each other's help." Sam said as if it was hurting him physically.

Damien and Barnes exchanged wary looks.

"Ahem. We… uh... we get the Sizzler gift card." Barnes said conditionally.

"Fine." Dean snapped.

"And we get to be Sam and Dean." Damien said quickly.

Sam and Dean exchanged annoyed looks as Dean's hand twitched towards his gun again.

"Fine." Dean rolled his eyes.

"Yes." Damien whispered happily.

Elena walked in between the two sets of males as they approached the door. When Dean reached out and opened it, she remained behind. The real Winchesters turned to look at her questioningly along with Damien and Barnes.

"You guys go. I'll hold down the fort." Elena said, gesturing around the hotel.

"You sure?" Dean asked, stepping forward.

"Yeah, do you really want to leave Chuck alone with a bunch of nerds in a haunted hotel? The guy'll have a heart attack if anything happens. You two can take care of a ghost." Elena said, rolling her eyes.

Dean pulled her close and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Hey! She's still with us! No acting out a tortured romance!" Damien argued.

They turned to look at him, a matching ferociousness on their face that made him take a step back.

"You be careful. I don't care if you've got super strength or an angel on your shoulder. You stay safe." He said softly so that no one else could hear him.

"You too." She said, stroking his cheek before pressing a kiss to his mouth.

She heard two people clear their throats and she sighed, pushing Dean away before focusing on Sam.

"Take care of each other. And these two idiots." She said, gesturing to Damien and Barnes.

"I knew it! You were only with us to get the map!" Damien said, horrified.

Elena simply stared at him before turning to walk back inside.

* * *

Damien and Barnes walked along the path with Sam and Dean walking behind them, bags on their shoulders.

"Hey, Rufus, Bobby, would you hurry it up?" Damien said over his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" Sam whispered to Dean.

"I'm trying to be." Dean snapped grumpily.

"So where were we?" Barnes asked Damien.

"Uh, Dr Ellicott just zapped your brain at the asylum." Damien answered.

"Right, got it." Barnes nodded before going into character. "Why are we even here Dean? You just following dad's footsteps like a good little soldier? You that desperate for approval?"

"This isn't you talking Sam." Damien replied in a deep voice.

Dean turned to Sam, giving him a 'how much do we have to put up with' look. Sam simply frowned and turned back to watch the path they were walking down.

"See that's the difference between you and me. I got a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic." Barnes said.

"So what are you going to do Sam? Are you going to kill me?" Damien replied.

"Man I am so sick of you telling me what to do." Barnes shot back.

"All right, you know what? That's it. That is it." Dean growled, stopping as he glared at the two men.

They turned around with confused looks.

"What's wrong Bobby?" Damien asked, still in the Dean character.

Dean's eyes widened and he was so angry for a moment that he couldn't speak.

"I'm not Bobby, ok? You're not Sam! You're not Dean! What is wrong with you? Why in the hell would you choose to be these guys?" Dean shouted.

"Because we're fans. Like you." Barnes said in his normal voice.

"No. I am not a fan, ok. Not fans. In fact, I think that the Dean and Sam story sucks. It is not fun. It is not entertaining. It is a river of crap that would send most people howling to the nut house. So you listen to me. Their pain is not for your amusement. I mean do you think they enjoy being treated like... like circus freaks?" Dean growled, glaring between them.

"Uh... I don't think they care, because they're fictional characters!" Damien scoffed.

"Oh they care. Believe me. They care a lot." Dean stormed off down the path, leaving the others staring after him.

Damien and Barnes looked back at Dean with matching 'what the hell' looks.

"He… uh... he takes the story really seriously." Sam nodded, grimacing after Dean.

* * *

"I found the four boys." Dean announced as they shined their flashlights on the graves in the cemetery.

"And here's Leticia Gore." Sam said.

Dean looked up to see Damien and Barnes tiptoeing around the edge of the cemetery, shining their flashlights in the bushes.

"Uh... what are you guys doing?" he asked, staring at them as though they were crazy.

"We're looking for bones genius. They got to be around here somewhere." Damien said in character.

"Okay... generally, bones are in the ground." Dean said, pointing down.

Sam dumped his bag and began pulling out supplies.

"Yeah, I know that. I just..." Damien watched with wide eyes as Sam pulled out two shovels. "Wait, hold on. Are you guys serious?"

"Deadly." Dean said seriously.

"We're not really digging up graves you guys, we're just playing a game." Damien scoffed, sounding disgusted.

"Trust us. You want win the game, right?" Dean said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Thirty minutes later, Dean and Sam were the only ones in the grave and they were just finishing up when Dean's shovel clanged against something. Sam climbed out as Dean handed his shovel up to Damien, who was leaning over the side with Barnes.

He reached down and lifted the cotton lid, revealing a skeleton as a wind blew around the cemetery.

Damien gagged loudly as Dean clambered out of the grave.

"That's not a plastic skeleton. That's a... that's a skeleton skeleton." Damien stammered.

"You just dug up a real grave." Barnes said, his eyes wide.

"Yeah." Dean agreed.

"You guys are nuts." Damien informed them, backing away from the grave.

"I thought you guys wanted to be hunters." Sam said, vaguely amused.

"Hunters aren't real man. This isn't real." Damien said, freaking out.

The two fake hunters turned to walk away.

"My God. You guys have seriously lost your grip on this…" Damien said, turning back to look at them.

He suddenly froze and looked terrified.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Naughty, naughty, naughty!" they heard a raspy voice say from behind them.

They whirled around just in time for the ghost of Leticia Gore to backhand Sam across the cemetery. Barnes and Damien screamed, turning to run. Dean turned to rummage in his duffel bag, pulling out salt and burn materials. Barnes tripped as they ran off and Damien called his name as he turned back for him. When they turned to run again, Leticia Gore was standing in front of them. They screamed and grabbed each other fearfully.

"Oh my God!" Damien shouted.

"Naughty, naughty, naughty!" Gore repeated, shoving a hand into each of their chests.

Dean quickly poured salt and kerosene all over the bones, looking up with wide eyes before pulling a lighter out of his pocket and flicking it effortlessly, dropping it into the coffin. Gore screamed as she burned and Damien and Barnes stared at the spot where she was once she disappeared. Dean walked over to Sam and held out a hand for him. The brothers turned to Damien and Barnes, who were staring at them fearfully.

"Real enough for you?" Dean asked.

They simply stared at him, horrified.

* * *

Elena sighed with relief when Dean and Sam came walking into the bar. Damien and Barnes followed behind them, both pale and shaken. Dean smirked at her as they approached the bar where she was sitting.

"Shot of whiskey. Your best." He nodded at the bartender.

"Did it go all right?" Elena asked.

"The bitch is burned, though she didn't exactly make it easy on us." Dean informed her.

When the bartender handed the shot to him, Dean surprised her by sliding it over to Damien, who grabbed it and shot it down easily.

"That was... really..." Damien trailed off.

"Awful. Right?" Dean asked.

Barnes and Damien looked at Sam and Dean with wide eyes where they stood next to Elena, who just looked amused.

"Exactly. Round's on us guys." Dean said, slapping Damien's shoulder as he set money on the bar.

"See you around." Elena said with a smile as they turned to leave.

"Hey. How'd you know how to do all that?" Damien asked, stopping them as they turned to look back at them.

"We… uh... we read the books." Sam said.

Dean and Elena nodded in agreement. When they walked out of the bar, they found Chuck standing with clipboard guy who they also figured was the convention manager.

"Hey Chuck. Good luck with the Supernatural books, and screw you very much." Dean said, saluting him as they passed.

"Fans of yours?" they heard the convention manager ask.

"Hmmm. I'd say no." Chuck said, making them all laugh quietly.

"Hey wait, we forgot our bags." Sam said, pointing back at the bar.

"See you outside." Elena said as they doubled back.

"Here." Dean handed her the Impala keys.

She walked outside and began to walk down the stairs when she heard something. She turned back to the doors with a confused look before walking to them and attempting to open them. They were locked.

"Son of a…" she walked to a window and peeked inside to see one of the ghost children standing at the stairs.

He looked directly at her and smirked before disappearing. She stood back and furrowed her brow as she tried to figure out what was going on. She squinted her eyes and concentrated on the doors but even her extra special super powers didn't work on forcing them open. Whatever was keeping them closed had a very strong presence. It had to be more than one creature. She heard the doors rattle and walked to them.

"That's weird." She heard Dean's muffled voice say.

"Definitely." Sam said from inside.

Elena groaned and let her head fall back as she turned to walk to the Impala and grab her phone where it was in her purse.

* * *

Dean groaned, straining to open a window with no luck as Sam approached him.

"Hey. Anything?" Dean asked.

"Every exit's locked. Almost like..." Sam trailed off.

"Something's keeping us in?" Dean finished, slamming his hand against the window in frustration.

"Yeah. This is bad." Sam sighed.

"Gee you think Sammy? Elena probably doesn't even know." Dean said, looking out into the dark parking lot.

His phone suddenly rang and he pulled it out to see her number calling him.

"Or maybe she does." Sam said.

"Hey." He said once he answered.

"I'm locked out and I can't force the doors open for some reason. I'm guessing you're locked in." she said, sounding frustrated.

"Yep." Dean nodded.

Suddenly a woman's scream pierced the air.

"Call you back." Dean said before they ran upstairs to see the female who was acting as the ghost of Leticia running out of the library, looking behind her fearfully.

Dean caught her as she barreled into him.

"Don't go in there!" She cried, sobbing in his arms.

"Get downstairs ok? Go go!" he instructed her before they turned to walk into the library.

The same little boy from the attic was crouched in the corner holding his hands over his face.

"Why'd you do that? Why did you send my mommy away?" the boy whimpered.

"Uh, maybe because of the high and tight she gave you, huh? How bout some thanks." Dean scoffed.

Sam cleared his throat, raising his eyebrow at Dean.

"Well, I'm just saying a little gratitude might be nice once in a while." Dean shrugged.

"My mommy didn't do this to me." the little boy said, looking at them from between his fingers.

"What? Then who did?" Sam demanded.

The little boy suddenly disappeared and they heard a shout from the hallway.

They ran out into the hallway to find the hook man with the strange accent dead, scalped just like the little boy.

* * *

"It's the little kids." Dean said into the phone as they walked into the auditorium where Chuck was wrapping up the convention.

"Of course it's the little kids." Elena sighed.

"Well guys I guess we're out of time. So thank you for your incredibly probing and rigorous questions, and have a good..." Chuck was interrupted by Sam running onto the stage and whispering into his ear.

"Hey... what? Holy crap!" Chuck exclaimed.

"You should get Chuck to keep everyone in one room." Elena informed Dean.

"Yeah, we're working on it." Dean said as the audience murmured in concern over Chuck's reaction.

"You gotta keep everyone safe in here Chuck. This is life or death." Sam hissed as he covered the microphone.

"For how long?" Chuck demanded.

"As long as it takes." Sam shrugged unapologetically.

"Well... how the hell am I supposed to do that?" he asked.

"I don't know man. Just do it." Sam said as he turned to walk off the stage.

"Ok. So uh… good news. I got much more to tell you... I guess." Chuck said with a high-pitched voice.

"Get all of the hotel staff in there so that you know where everyone is at once." Elena said.

"Can you figure out a way to get in here?" Dean asked.

"I've tried every single entrance. There's nothing." Elena sighed as he walked out to usher the staff into the room.

"All right well… I'll call you when everyone is accounted for." Dean said.

* * *

"Buddy, I got work to do." The hotel manager complained as they filed into the auditorium.

"You're gonna want to see this, trust me. It's gonna be a hell of a show." Dean said, not believing his own words in the slightest.

Dean closed the door and began laying salt outside of it along with Sam.

"Ok. New theory. The legends about Leticia are ass-backwards obviously." Dean said as they stood.

"Yeah. So all right, let's say those three orphans were playing cowboys and Indians." Sam suggested.

"LARPing as cowboys and Indians." Dean corrected him with a smirk.

"Whatever. And let's say they scalped Leticia's son and killed him." Sam said.

"Mom catches 'em in the act, flips out, slices them and dices herself." Dean agreed.

"If that's true it means we've got three bloodthirsty brats in the building." Sam sighed.

"Yeah and Leticia was the only one keeping them under control."

"Smooth move on our part." Sam said, rolling his eyes..

"Yeah, well we gotta get back to the cemetery, torch the kids' bones." Dean said.

"How? We're trapped, we don't even have our guns! The ghosts are running this joint and they're only scared of one thing." Sam said.

"Exactly." Dean said, grinning as he pulled out the phone to dial Elena.

"Hey we know what's going and we need to salt and burn the bones of the boys."

"Okay, I can do that." Elena said.

"We have all of the supplies in here." Dean replied.

"That was genius of us." She shot back.

"Yeah." Dean agreed.

* * *

"You want me to do what?" the ghost woman actor asked, raising an eyebrow at them.

"You're an actress. We just want you to act." Dean said.

"I work at Hooters, in Toledo. No, you can forget it." she said, shaking her head.

"You'll be safe, we promise. This is really important." Sam said desperately.

A hand suddenly dropped on Dean's shoulder.

"We wanna help." Damien said as Dean turned to see him and Barnes standing there.

"Just give her the puppy dog thing ok?" Dean said to Sam before turning to the other two.

"Guys, no." he said, shaking his head.

"Why not?" Barnes questioned.

"Cause this isn't make-believe." Dean said.

"Look, we know. We're not nuts. We're freakin' terrified." Damien said.

"Yeah but if all these people are seriously in trouble, we gotta do something." Barnes nodded.

"Why?" Dean demanded, exasperated.

"Because. That's what Sam and Dean would do." Damien said simply.

* * *

Dean stood just outside the door of the library as the actor woman walked into the room nervously.

"I don't wanna do this." she whimpered.

Dean leaned around the corner to reassure her.

"I'm right here sweetheart, I've got your back. Trust me, this is going to work." He said.

He pulled back so that he couldn't be seen.

"Boys? Boys? Come here this instant. You come when I call you. You understand me?" she said in a nervous voice.

"Miss Gore?" a boy's voice suddenly said as the three appeared in the room.

* * *

Sam, Damien, and Barnes all threw their weight against the front doors, attempting to slam them open.

"Put your backs into it!" they heard Elena yell from outside, much to their displeasure.

* * *

"You boys have been very naughty. Now you open the doors. Open the doors right now." The actress said, pointing at them as she became more confident.

The boys all flickered backwards, worried.

* * *

The door suddenly gave a little and Elena darted forward to pull it open as far as she could.

"Go go go." she heard Sam say as Damien and Barnes shoved their way through the small gap.

* * *

"Very naughty, you hear me?" she said, glaring at them.

Suddenly music began to play from a cell phone. The boys all frowned and looked at each other as the main door slammed shut downstairs before Sam could make it through. Dean closed his eyes and began banging his head softly against the wall out of frustration. The actress, terrified, pulled her phone out of the pocket of the dress and shut the music off as the ghost boys stared at her with devious expressions. Dean walked into the room, his iron bar raised.

"Run!" he said, shoving her towards the door.

The boys all raised their knives, advancing on him.

* * *

"Sam?" Elena called, yanking on the door.

"Elena I can't get through. Damien has one of the bags. Go do it." he said.

Elena turned to the two men and shook her head before running down the stairs with them following her. She slid off her shoes and took off down the path at a quick sprint.

"Slow down!" Damien huffed.

"Speed up!" she shouted back at them.

When they reached the cemetery, she instructed them to dig a grave each as she dug her own.

"Oh my God. Supernatural makes digging graves seem so easy. It's not though. I'm gonna throw up." Damien grunted as they dug as quickly as they could.

"No you're not." Elena snapped back.

* * *

Dean was thrown against the wall, his iron bar sliding across the room. The boys raised their knives and advanced on him again but Sam ran in and dispersed all three with his own iron bar. He held out a hand and helped Dean up.

"Thanks." Dean nodded.

Sam was suddenly thrown backwards, his own iron bar skidding across the floor.

"Sam!" Dean shouted, starting forward when he saw that Sam was knocked unconscious.

He was slammed backwards and a boy appeared on top of him, holding up a knife as he glared down at him.

* * *

Elena watched with wide eyes as Damien flicked his lighter repeatedly, failing at lighting it each time.

"How come Dean can always light the stupid thing on the first freaking try?" he said frustratingly.

Elena felt the feeling flaring up in her that Dean and Sam were both in danger and her limited patience finally broke.

"Oh give it to me!" she snapped, grabbing it from him and lighting it on the first try.

* * *

Another ghost appeared on top of Sam and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head backwards as he held a knife to his hairline.

"No! Dean!" Sam shouted as he came to, struggling.

Dean was also being held down, the boy on top of him holding his throat as he approached his own scalp with the knife. Suddenly both boys burned up and Sam and Dean laid there, gasping as they laid back.

* * *

Elena sighed with relief as she walked to the duffel bag, her instincts telling her that Sam and Dean were just fine.

"You did good." She said, nodding at the two men before gathering up the supplies and turning to head back to the hotel.

They followed her and, once they climbed up the steps, she automatically concentrated on the doors to check on her abilities, causing them to fly open.

"What the hell?" Damien said, his eyes wide.

"Ghosts." Elena shrugged, smirking as they hesitantly approached the threshhold.

Dean and Sam came walking down the stairs, both holding iron bar's and looking exhausted.

"You know, maybe that guy was right. We should put these on bungies." Dean sighed, tossing the bar to the floor.

Elena grinned and shook her head as Chuck walked into the room.

"The ghosts are gone?" he asked.

"Yes, they are." Damien said in Dean's voice.

They all turned to stare at him.

"Sorry." He shrugged.

"You know I gotta hand it to you guys. You really saved our asses back there. So uh… you know… thanks." Dean said as they watched the gurney being rolled out with the hook guy's body in it and the lights from the emergency vehicles flashed on their faces.

Damien and Barnes shrugged, grinning at Dean.

"Guys, I don't even know your names." Dean said.

"Oh. Well, I'm Barnes. This is Damien. What's yours?" Barnes said with a smile.

Elena turned to grin at Dean, wondering what he would say.

"Dean. The real Dean." He decided.

After a moment, Damien and Barnes bursted out laughing.

"Yeah right. Me too!" Damien choked out.

"Get the hell out of here Dean!" Barnes said, shaking his head.

Dean looked disappointed for a moment before smiling.

"Well, anyway. Thanks. Really." He said, sliding his hand into Elena's as they turned to walk away.

"You're wrong you know." Damien said.

They stopped and turned back.

"Sorry?" Dean asked.

"About Supernatural. No offense but I'm not sure you get what the stories about." Damien said.

"Is that so?" Dean said as both him and Elena smirked.

"All right. In real life, he sells stereo equipment. I fix copiers. Our lives suck. But to be Sam and Dean, to wake up every morning and save the world. To have a brother who would die for you. Well who wouldn't want that?" Damien shrugged, looking over at Barnes.

Dean and Elena exchanged a look and she shrugged, smiling.

"Maybe you got a point." He sighed.

"You know, you two don't make a bad team yourselves. How do you know each other anyway?" Elena asked, smiling at the men.

"Oh. Well, we met online. Supernatural chat room." Barnes nodded.

"Oh. Well it must be nice to get out of your parent's basement. Make some friends." Dean said, making Elena laugh and hit his shoulder.

"We're more than friends." Damien said, taking Barnes' hand. "We're partners."

Barnes dropped his head on Damien's shoulder and they both grinned at Dean and Elena.

"Oh. Wow. Ahem. Howdy partners." Dean nodded at them, looking slightly traumatized.

"Howdy." Barnes replied.

* * *

"Look Sam. I'm not gonna lie. We had undeniable chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun it was too hot to live. It can't go on. Chuck and I, we found each other. My yin to his proud yang. And well, the heart wants what the heart wants. I'm so sorry." Becky said, looking over at Chuck happily.

"Yeah Sam. Sorry." Chuck said, smiling sheepishly at him.

Sam grimaced at both of them, uncomfortable in this conversation as Dean and Elena walked up to them.

"Will you be all right?" Becky asked.

Sam sighed, looking over at Elena who winked at him. He shook his head and put on a sad face.

"Honestly I don't know. I'll just have to find a way to keep living, I guess." He said dramatically, making both Dean and Elena grin.

"God bless you." Becky said, looking at him sympathetically.

"Ok. Oh, hey. Chuck. If you really wanna publish more books, I guess that's ok with us." Sam said, causing Elena and Dean to look at him with wide and slightly angry eyes.

"Wow. Really?" Chuck said, excited.

"No not really. We have guns and we will find you." Sam said seriously, making them relax.

"Ok, ok. No more books." Chuck nodded.

"See you around." Sam said as Elena took his arm to walk off with the brothers.

"Sam! Wait, one more thing. In chapter 33 of Supernatural Time is on my Side, there's that girl Bela? She was British, and a cat burglar." Becky said, making them turn their heads back.

"Yeah I know." Sam nodded.

"She stole the Colt from you and then she said she gave it to Lilith, remember?" Becky said.

"Yeah." Dean said, nodding.

"Well you know she lied right, she didn't really give it to Lilith." Becky said.

"Wait, what?" Sam said, looking at Chuck with wide eyes.

"Didn't you read the book? There was this one scene where Bela gives the Colt to a demon named Crowley. Lilith's right hand man. And I think her lover too." Becky said happily.

"Crowley." Sam said.

"Didn't it occur to you to tell us this before?" Dean asked Chuck.

"I'm sorry. I didn't remember. I'm not as much of a fan as she is." Chuck said, smiling at Becky.

"Becky, tell us everything." Elena said, not knowing who Bela or Crowley was.

Becky gave them a huge smile before launching into an explanation of what happened in the book.

* * *

"Don't you feel like we should be out looking for the Colt?" Sam asked.

"Nope. I got my ass kicked by three evil kids. I'm relaxing." Dean said as he leaned back against the headboard.

"Besides we have no idea where this Crowley guy is and until Cas answers our phone calls, we won't know." Elena said, flipping through a book.

"What are you reading" Dean asked.

Elena looked over at him with a slightly guilty expression.

"Becky gave me the most recent book. Told me I should read chapter twenty-four." She said, flushing.

"What's in chapter twenty-four?" Dean asked with a smirk.

"Umm… nothing." She said too quickly, her head snapping back to the book.

Dean leaned in and she bit her lip as his eyebrows raised and his smirk grew more pronounced.

"Well… Chuck's got quite the imagination." Dean said.

"Artistic license, I suppose." Elena said, glancing over at him before looking back at the book.

Suddenly both of their heads tilted to the right at the same time.

"Can you really… in a shower? Isn't that slippery?" Elena murmured.

"It's entirely possible." Dean said confidently.

Elena looked over at him for a moment before catching her lower lip between her teeth again. Dean looked into her eyes and an unspoken communication passed between them. Dean was up and out of bed and throwing her over his shoulder. She let out a pealing laugh as he ran into the bathroom.

"Oh God, really guys?" Sam complained.

"Leave if you don't like it!" Dean yelled, slamming the door shut.

* * *

"I don't like it, Gabriel." Cas said.

"I really couldn't care less, Castiel. We are drawing ever closer to the final showdown. More importantly, Elena only has a month left before Zachariah unleashes his wrath on her." Gabriel said, leaning back in the chair he was sitting in.

Castiel turned from the window to stare at him.

"They aren't going to say yes. No matter what you do to them." He warned him.

"Oh I have a lot in store for the brothers. For Elena too, of course. But I am going to have to find a way to keep her quiet." Gabriel said.

"Quiet? What do you mean?" Castiel asked, confused.

"Don't concern yourself, brother." Gabriel said, smirking at the medical drama that was playing on the television.

"You are now returning to Dr. Sexy M.D."

* * *

**Next: Gabriel decides to send the three hunters on a crazy trip through TV land and a lot is revealed.**


	9. Author's Note - Sorry!

**This is an author's note about a new crossover series.**

I owe you an explanation as to why I've been slowing down in updates. I've been planning a new crossover series with these two shows. It will not take away from this series as I still have a lot of this one written. It will be completely different in that it is starting in the beginning of Supernatural universe with an entirely new TVD storyline. It sounds confusing but I think it will be good. The first story should be up very soon. I just wanted to let you guys know about it since you seem to like this one a lot. I hope that you will read it because I am very excited about writing it. Once again, it does not mean that I'll be stopping with this one. I've written two and even three stories at once and been fine so I think it'll be okay. Please let me know if you would like to read this story! I would love to hear if people are interested. Below is an unofficial summary.

**Summary:** Elena Gilbert was raised in the supernatural life from a young age when tragedy struck her family. When she manages to break away from it and live a normal life at Stanford University, she never expects to be dragged back into the hunter's life by two brothers with a similar story to hers.

Sorry I forgot to add this, it would be Dean/Elena. I'm just too invested in Dean and Elena to go any other way. I'm so sorry if you wanted something else.

**Once again, let me know if you're interested! I would love to hear from you!**


	10. Light Will Shine Through the Rain

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Chapter Title: Devil May Cry – The Weeknd**

**A few things:**

**1. I apologize in advance for the ending of this chapter.**

**2. There is a lemony part in this chapter. The warnings are there for when it starts and ends so you can skip it if you'd like.**

**3. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**4. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

Elena smiled happily as she pulled on her clothing. It was finally warm enough outside for her not to have to bundle up in winter clothing. That was the problem with them spending most of their time up in the northern states. After throwing on her clothing, she focused on the mirror and quickly straightened her hair, pulling half of it back in clip when she was done. When she walked out, she saw Sam walking in holding breakfast for them. They both stopped short when they saw Dean fumbling with the remote trying to turn off the television. Elena's first thought was that he was watching porn but she saw what was on and grinned.

"What are you watching?" she asked, amused.

"Hospital show. Dr. Sexy, MD. I think it's based on a book." Dean said, trying to act casual all of the sudden.

"When did you hit menopause?" Sam smirked at his brother as he handed a coffee to Elena.

"It's called channel surfing." Dean scoffed, turning the television off as he took his own coffee.

Sam grabbed his suit jacket off of his bed and pulled it on.

"You ready?" Dean asked, looking between them.

"Are you?" Sam said with a grin, holding up the Impala keys.

Dean yanked the keys out of his hand and turned to walk out with Elena and Sam walking behind him.

"Are you just wearing that?" Dean asked, inspecting the dress and the thin sweater.

"Yep! It's warm!" Elena said, grinning at him.

"It's not that warm." He informed her.

"It's warm enough." she shrugged, ignoring the slight chill in the air.

"All right. Well if you get cold, don't come crying to me. I warned you." he said, fixing his tie as they walked.

"I'm not gonna get cold." She said with certainty.

Dean simply shrugged skeptically.

* * *

"One more time, the FBI is here why, exactly?" the police officer asked, leaning across the desk.

"Might have something to do with one of your locals getting his head ripped off." Dean informed him as Elena stood slightly away from him trying to hide the fact that she had goosebumps on her arms.

She didn't count on it being cold in the police station. Sam glanced over at her and smirked but she put her finger to her lips to hush him.

"Bill Randolph died from a bear attack." The officer said, staring at them.

"How sure are you that it was a bear?" Sam asked.

"What else would it be?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, whatever it was it chased Mr. Randolph through the woods, smashed through his front door followed him up the stairs, and killed him in his bedroom." Elena said, trying to ignore the coldness as she leaned forward. "Is that common, a bear doing all that?"

"Depends how pissed off it is, I guess. Look, the Randolphs live way up in high country. You got trout runs to make a grown man weep. And bears." The officer said, shaking his head.

"Right. Now, what about Mrs. Randolph? The file says she saw the whole thing." Sam said.

"Yes, she did. My heart goes out to that poor woman." The man nodded.

"She said bear?" Dean asked.

"Kathy Randolph went through a hell of a trauma. She's confused." He informed them.

"What did she say?" Sam asked, not trusting this guy to tell them the truth rather than what he believed to be true.

"You know what? How about you just go talk to her?" the officer said before directing them to an interrogation room.

As soon as Dean turned around, his eyes narrowed at Elena.

"You're cold, aren't you?" he asked.

"No?" she said, her denial coming out with less certainty than she'd like.

He sighed and shook his head.

"I didn't count on it being cold inside." she said pathetically, looking down at her shoes.

Before she knew it, Dean was sliding his jacket over her shoulders.

"Maybe you should listen to me next time. You don't always have to be the only one doing the protecting." He murmured in her ear as she slid her sleeves into the jacket.

"Thank you." she whispered back, smiling at him over her shoulder.

* * *

"No, it must have been a bear." Kathy Randolph said as she sat on one side of the table.

Elena was leaning against the wall as Sam and Dean sat at the table with her.

"I mean, what else could it have been?" she shrugged, sounding unconvinced.

"Mrs. Randolph, what do you think it was?" Sam asked.

"No, I, I remember clearly now. It was definitely a bear." Kathy said, nodding her head.

"We're sure it was. But see, it helps us to hear every angle. So just tell us what you thought you saw." Dean urged her.

"It's impossible, but... I could have sworn I saw... the Incredible Hulk." She said with wide eyes.

Elena stared at her, unable to decide if she was kidding or not.

"The Incredible Hulk." Sam said, obviously thinking the same thing.

"I told you it was crazy." She mumbled, looking down at her hands.

"Bana or Norton?" Dean asked.

"Oh, no, those movies were terrible. The TV Hulk." She said suddenly, looking up at him.

"Lou Ferrigno?" Dean said.

"Yes." She nodded.

"Spiky-hair Lou Ferrigno." Dean said.

"Yes." Kathy said definitively, sounding more confident now.

"Huh." Dean said as him and Sam exchanged a look.

Kathy noticed this and sighed.

"You think I'm crazy." She said.

"No. Uh, no, it's just... is there, uh, would there be any reason that Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk, would have a grudge against your husband?"

"No." Kathy said, giving Dean a strange look as if it was her turn not to believe what he was saying.

"No." Dean nodded.

* * *

Elena had her head in Dean's lap as he flipped through the television channels. He was in his normal casual outfit and she was in comfortable clothes, including shorts that made him shake his head at her stubbornness. One of his hands was running through her hair softly as she played with his other hand, running her fingers over the scars on the knuckles and the lines on his palm. Sam opened the door and walked in, still in his FBI outfit.

"Hey." He said, pulling his jacket off and sitting on his bed.

"Find anything?" Dean asked.

"Well, uh, I saw the house." Sam said.

"And?" Elena asked, looking back at him.

"And there is a giant eight-foot-wide hole where the front door used to be. Almost like, uh..."

"A Hulk-sized hole." Dean finished for him.

"Maybe. What do you got?" Sam asked, referring to the research that Dean had done on his laptop earlier.

"Well, it turns out that Bill Randolph had quite the temper. He's got two counts of spousal battery, bar brawls, and court-ordered anger management sessions. You might say you wouldn't like him when he's angry." Dean said with a smirk.

"So a hothead getting killed by TV's greatest hothead. Kinda sounds like just desserts, doesn't it?" Sam said, looking as though he got an idea.

Dean snorted, shaking his head.

"It's all starting to make sense." Sam said, standing up and turning to face them.

"How is it starting to make sense?" Dean asked as Elena sat up, both of them confused.

"Well, I found something else at the crime scene." He pulled a handful of candy wrappers out of his pocket.

"Candy wrappers." He said. "Lots of them."

"Just desserts, sweet tooth, screwing with people before you kill 'em… we're dealing with the Trickster, aren't we?" Dean sighed, making Elena's eyes widen.

She, at Gabriel's request, never informed Sam and Dean that they knew the archangel because he was the Trickster.

"Sure looks like it." Sam nodded.

"Good. I've wanted to gank that mother since Mystery Spot." Dean said, standing up.

"You sure?" Sam questioned.

"Yeah I'm sure." Dean scoffed.

Elena looked down at her hands, unsure of whether or not to speak up.

"No, I mean are you sure you wanna kill him?" Sam asked.

"Son of a bitch didn't think twice about icing me a thousand times." Dean snapped and Elena's eyes shot up to him.

"What?" she said.

"That's a story for another time." Dean sighed, shaking his head.

Elena's eyes narrowed. Now she was going to have to have words with Gabriel.

"No, I know, I mean, I'm just saying…"

"What are you saying? If you don't want to kill him, then what?" Dean cut Sam off.

"Talk to him?" Sam suggested questioningly.

"What?" Dean scoffed.

"Think about it, Dean. He's one of the most powerful creatures we've ever met. Maybe we can use him." Sam shrugged.

Elena looked up at him with an interested look.

"For what?" Dean asked.

"Okay, Trickster's like a Hugh Hefner type, right? Wine, women, song… maybe he doesn't want the party to end." Elena bit her lip, thinking that he had Gabriel down to a tee. "Maybe he hates this angels and demons stuff as much as we do. Maybe he'll help us." Sam shrugged.

"You're serious." Dean said, sounding skeptical.

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

"Ally with the Trickster." He said slowly.

"Yeah."

"A bloody, violent monster, and you wanna be Facebook friends with him? Nice, Sammy." Dean said, shaking his head.

"The world is gonna end, Dean. We don't have the luxury of a moral stand. Look, I'm just saying it's worth a shot. That's all. If it doesn't work, we'll kill him." Sam said.

Elena opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it and snapped it shut.

"How are we gonna find the guy, anyway?" Dean sighed.

"Well, he never takes just one victim, right? He'll show." Sam shrugged.

Elena got up and walked to the bathroom, trying to decide whether or not to tell them. On the one hand, if they did catch up with Gabriel, they were going to figure out that she knew who he was the whole time and be unhappy. On the other hand, Gabriel did request that she keep it quiet. She stared in the mirror, her mind fighting two different sides of the same battle. When she blinked, she suddenly found herself standing in a different room. It was a warehouse.

"What the hell?" Elena said, turning around in circles.

"Nope. Just me." she turned to see Gabriel walking towards her.

"What is this I hear about you icing Dean a thousand times?" she asked immediately.

"Oh that's so far in the past... let's not speak about that." Gabriel said, shaking his head as he waved her off.

"Why are you here?" Elena questioned, knowing she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of him before she ever asked the question.

"Oh I just want to make the Winchesters… and you… think a few things over. So all I'm gonna need you to do is keep your pretty mouth shut. They can't know that I'm an angel, you hear? This won't work if they figure it out. If you keep your mouth shut, I'll let you remain with them throughout the whole experiment. If you blab, I'll shut you away until it's over." He warned her.

"Gee, Gabriel. I'm really feeling the love here." Elena snapped.

"Don't worry. It'll be over soon enough." he said, smirking at her before disappearing.

Suddenly she was back in the bathroom again.

"Um, Dispatch? I, I got a possible 187 out here at the old paper mill on Route 6?" she heard a voice over their police scanner say from outside the room.

She walked out to see them gathered around it.

"Roger that. What are you looking at there, son?" another voice said.

"Honestly, Walt, I, I wouldn't even know how to describe what I'm seeing. Just… send everybody." The original voice said, terror in his tone.

"All right, stay calm, stay by your car. Help's on the way." the dispatch said.

Sam turned off the scanner, turning to look at Dean.

"That sounds weird." The older brother said.

"Weird enough to be our guy." Sam nodded.

* * *

Elena shivered as they got out of the Impala. There were no police cars or anything and she instantly knew that Gabriel had drawn them here and that this was the warehouse she'd just been in with him.

"There was a murder here, and there's no police cars. There's nobody. How's that look to you?" Dean asked as he opened the trunk.

"Crappy." Sam agreed.

Dean pulled out three blood-tipped stakes and flashlights out of the trunk and handed one of each to the two of them before closing the trunk. They turned to enter the building and Elena had a feeling that it would be a while before they were going to exit it. As soon as they walked through the door, Elena found herself alone in a hallway. She looked around wildly, confused, as she realized that she was on a hospital based on the people around her. When she looked down, she realized that she was in a set of light blue scrubs and a white lab coat with her picture on an ID card clipped to the lab coat.

"What the hell?" she mumbled.

"Doctor." Someone nodded at her as they passed her and she looked up at them with wider eyes.

When she looked around, she saw a ruggedly handsome man walking towards her with his hands in his pockets and his long hair blowing in a non-existant wind. She immediately recognized him as the man off of the television program that Dean was watching earlier in the day, Dr. Sexy M.D. As he passed, he winked at her and she felt like she knew him even though she didn't. How was it possible that she was in a television program? She began to follow the man and rounded the corner to see Dean and Sam standing there in similar clothing. Dean looked up and his eyes widened, first at Elena and then at the man she was following.

"Oh boy." She heard him say.

"What?" Sam asked.

"It's him." Dean said as they drew closer.

"Who?" Sam said, frustrated.

"It's him, it's Dr. Sexy."

Elena rolled her eyes as the man came to a stop in front of them and looked at Dean. She stopped just behind them.

"Doctor." Dr. Sexy said.

Dean looked down, hiding a satisfied smile.

"Doctor." He said.

The man turned to Sam.

"Doctor." He said.

Sam simply nodded and Dean elbowed him in the ribs.

"Doctor." Sam choked out.

Dr. Sexy turned back to address Dean.

"You want to give me one good reason why you defied my direct order to do the experimental face transplant on Mrs. Biehl?" he demanded.

"One reason?" Dean asked, panicking.

Dr. Sexy nodded, serious.

"Sure." Dean shrugged as he looked down.

His brow furrowed and suddenly he looked up before slamming the doctor into the wall.

"Dean! What the…" Elena said, starting forward.

"You're not Dr. Sexy." Dean hisses, holding his collar.

"You're crazy." The man said, not at all put off by Dean's behavior.

Elena stood a little ways back, wondering why she all of the sudden found Dean's aggressiveness so damn sexy.

"Really? Because I swore part of what makes Dr. Sexy sexy is the fact that he wears cowboy boots. Not tennis shoes." Dean snapped.

"Yeah. You're not a fan." Sam scoffed.

"It's a guilty pleasure." Dean shrugged.

"God that's hot." Slipped out of Elena's mouth before she could help it.

Dean and Sam looked at her with wide eyes as she clapped her hands over her lips.

"Call security." Dr. Sexy said casually to another doctor who was watching.

"Yeah, go ahead, pal. See, we know who you are." Dean snapped, turning his attention back on the man.

Suddenly everyone around them froze and they looked around with surprise. When they looked back, Elena's eyes widened as Dr. Sexy morphed into Gabriel.

"You guys are getting better!" he said, grinning at Dean and Sam who glared at him.

"Get us the hell out of here." Dean growled.

"Or what?" Gabriel said, grabbing Dean's arm and twisting, making him let go.

"Don't say you have wooden stakes, big guy." He said teasingly.

"That was you on the police scanner, right? This is a trick." Sam demanded.

"Hello? Trickster. Come on! I heard you two yahoos were in town along with your girl. How could I resist?" Gabriel shrugged, grinning at them.

He turned to wink at Elena.

"Where the hell are we?" Dean demanded.

"Like it? It's all homemade. My own sets…" Gabriel said, rapping on the window before indicating the frozen people.

"… my own actors... call it my own little idiot box." He said, twirling around to face them.

"How do we get out?" Dean asked.

"That, my friend, is the $64 question." He shrugged.

"Whatever. We just, we need to talk to you. We need your help." Sam said.

Gabriel glanced over at Elena before laughing, shaking his head.

"Hm, let me guess. You two muttonheads broke the world, and you want me to sweep up your mess." He said, smirking.

"Please. Just five minutes. Hear us out." Sam said pleadingly.

"Sure. Tell you what. Survive the next twenty-four hours, we'll talk." Gabriel said.

"Survive what?" Elena demanded, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Hello darling. I'm the Trickster, as you must know." He said, grabbing her hand to kiss it.

"The game!" he answered her question happily.

"What game?" Dean demanded, stepping between Elena and Gabriel.

Suddenly the smell of his aftershave reached Elena's nose and she fought with herself over whether or not to jump him right in that hallway. What was wrong with her?

"You're in it." Gabriel said with a grin.

"How do we play?" Dean asked.

"You're playing it."

"What are the rules?" Dean asked as Elena reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder, dying to rip the lab coat off of him.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow and grinned before vanishing.

"Oh, son of a bitch." Dean growled, whirling around.

"God you're hot when you curse." Elena said, unable to keep herself under control for much longer as she shoved him against the nearest door and pressed her lips against his.

"Dr. Sexy? Dr. Sexy?" a blonde doctor said cluelessly as she walked past searching for him.

"Guys? I don't think this is the best time." Sam said as they continued kissing.

Elena broke away from Dean's mouth to kiss down his neck and tried to force the jacket off of his shoulders.

"Sorry, Sammy. But it's kinda a side-effect of the show. Everyone is super… super horny." Dean said, groaning when Elena nipped at his neck.

Elena grabbed the front of his shirt and opened the door to the supply closet behind him before shoving him in.

"Elena…" Sam began to protest.

"Sorry Sam." she said without a second look before leaping into Dean's arms and kissing him thoroughly as her legs wrapped around his waist.

**LEMONY**

Dean didn't waste any time, slamming the door shut as he kissed her back. He shoved her against it and her hands finally removed his lab coat and made quick work of untucking his scrubs top. It was over his head instantly and he quickly got rid of her coat and top as well. Their hands roamed each other's torsos eagerly as they searched out each other's mouths hungrily.

"You know it's probably the Trickster making us like this." Dean gasped as he pulled away to yank her bra off.

"I don't care. I just want you." Elena said.

She launched forward and they collapsed onto the ground, ripping the rest of their clothing off without caring about the cleanliness of the floor. Dean flipped them over and spreaded her legs easily, his fingers trailing up her thigh to tease her womanhood.

"No time for teasing. I just need you." Elena growled, pulling him down to kiss her as her hips ground up into his.

Dean groaned and his head fell back as he positioned himself at her opening. Elena took the chance to begin kissing and biting and sucking at his throat. When he slid inside of her, both of them moaned with relief and pleasure. He started thrusting in and out at a slow place but it wasn't enough for her.

"Harder! Faster!" she demanded, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly.

Dean quickly obliged, speeding up his actions. Neither of them cared that it wasn't going to be a drawn out affair. They were too heated to want to make it last longer. It didn't take long for both of them to be screaming in pleasure as they drew ever closer to their desired climax.

"Dean!" Elena cried, arching her back as her walls began to clamp down on him.

He followed soon after, collapsing on top of her as both of them came down from their highs.

**END LEMONY**

"I sure hope that wasn't broadcasted." Elena mumbled, grinning with satisfaction.

"If it was, their viewership just went up." Dean said confidently.

* * *

Elena and Dean finally emerged from the closet a few minutes later, basking in the afterglow but still having the decency of looking slightly ashamed.

"Congratulations, I think the whole hospital heard you." Sam said, looking pained as he pushed himself off the wall.

Elena bit her lip as Dean shrugged and they turned to walk down the hallway.

"Oh, by the way. Talking with monsters? Hell of a plan." Dean said to Sam.

"Just, what do we do now?" Sam said, ready to leave this place.

"You know what I'm doing? Leaving." Dean nodded, trying to look around for an exit.

Elena watched as a brunette approached and took a swing at Sam, who ducked it.

"Lady, what the hell?" he demanded, his frustration making Elena think that this woman had already confronted him before.

"You are a brilliant, brilliant…" she said slowly.

"Yeah. A coward. You already said that. But I got news for you. I am not a doctor." Sam snapped.

She looked appalled at his words.

"Don't say that. You are the finest cerebrovascular neurosurgeon I have ever met, and I have met plenty. So that girl died on your table. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. Sometimes people just die." She said, her eyes widening as they stared at her.

"I have no idea what you're saying to me." Sam grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"You're afraid. You're afraid to operate again. And you're afraid to love." she said, tears filling her eyes before she turned to walk away.

"Yeah, we're getting out of here." Sam said, turning to walk off.

"Hey. Doctor." A man said, stepping out of a patient room to stop Dean.

"Yeah." Dean said.

"My wife needs that face transplant." The man said.

"Okay. You know what, pal? None of this is real, and your wife doesn't need jack squat. Okay?" Dean snapped, just as frustrated as Sam.

They turned to continue walking.

"Hey, Doctor." They heard him say again.

They all jumped when a gun went off and Elena felt Dean stumble beside her before falling to his knees.

"Real… it's real…" Dean grunted as Elena dropped to catch him.

"Dean!" she shrieked, watching the blood spread on his back.

"No no no, no no no no no… hey! We need a doctor!" Sam shouted.

"I can't heal him with the bullet still in his back, Sam." Elena said with wide eyes.

"Can you pull it out?" Sam asked.

"No, no pulling it out with bare hands." Dean grunted in her arms.

Suddenly they all blinked and they were in an operating room. Sam was holding instruments and Dean was lying on the table face down with a sheet covering everywhere on his back except for the small bullet wound.

"BP is eighty over fifty and dropping." One of the interns in the room informed Sam.

"Doctor." One of the other interns said, holding out a scalpel.

Sam didn't take it, staring at her with wide eyes.

"What?" he said.

"Sam." Both Elena and Sam jumped when they realized that Dean wasn't under anesthesia.

"Do something. Come on. Get the bullet out so Elena can do her thing." he commanded.

"I don't know how to use any of this crap." Sam hissed.

"Figure it out." Dean shot back.

Sam grinned around awkwardly before looking at Elena for help. She shrugged as she cursed Gabriel in her mind.

"Sam. Come on. I'm waiting." Dean growled.

"Okay. Um. I need a penknife and a fifth of whiskey." Sam said, waving the scalpel off as he gulped loudly.

The other doctors looked at him and each other, confused.

"Stat!" Elena shouted, causing everyone to start moving.

She watched as Sam proceeded to remove the bullet.

"We okay? How's it looking?" Dean asked once it was out of his back.

"Just relax." Elena said, looking up at the people watching.

"Get out." she said.

They all turned to leave after staring at her for a second. She sighed and put her hands over his back, quickly healing the wound and sighing with relief.

"You'll be fine." Sam announced as she drew away.

Suddenly they all heard loud chanting and looked around, confused. When Elena blinked, she was once again standing in a different place. She looked down with wide eyes at what she was wearing.

"I'm going to kill him." she muttered as she looked around at the crowd that was chanting in another language.

She caught sight of Sam and Dean standing on two pedestals that were separated. Their feet were tied down and there was a red button beside them and a long stick with a ball on the end that extended out in front of them. The two blue doors that were behind them suddenly opened and a Japanese man with a brightly colored suit came running out. Elena tried to run to them but a Japanese girl that was standing beside her stopped her in her tracks, shaking her head with a smile.

"Let's play Nutcracker!" the Japanese man said before launching in a rant in Japanese.

Elena looked around to see a sigh that had the number '20' on it. Suddenly the crowd went silent and the host pulled a set of cards out of his jacket.

"Sam Winchester." He said, causing Sam's head to snap over to him.

He continued to speak in Japanese and somehow, Elena suddenly understood it.

"What was the name of the demon you chose over your own brother? Countdown."

"What?" Sam said, panicking as the clock began counting down the seconds.

"Sam." Elena said and he turned to look at her.

"No no no! No help!" the host said and suddenly a strip of duct tape was over her mouth.

The two Japanese girls on either side of her grabbed her arms with a lot of strength so that Elena couldn't rip it off.

"Uh, what am I supposed to say?" Sam asked, looking at Dean.

"You think I know?" Dean said, as lost as his little brother was.

"Uh, I, I don't, I don't understand Japanese." He said to the host.

The man just replied in Japanese, repeating the question.

"Is he screwing with me? I, I, I can't speak Japanese." Sam said desperately.

The screen suddenly hit zero and a buzz filled the stage.

"The answer is... Ruby!" the host announced loudly. "I'm sorry, Sam Winchester."

"Sorry? Sir? For what?" Sam said, his head whipping around.

The host mimed hiding laughter very poorly and Elena struggled against her captors.

"Dean?" Sam whimpered.

The pole on Sam's platform suddenly shot up and whacked Sam in the crotch, causing him to bend over in excruciating pain, as Dean looked horrified and the crowd cheered loudly.

"Nutcracker!" the host yelled triumphantly.

"Sam?" Dean said, looking at his brother with a grimace.

Sam simply let out a whimper as he doubled over in pain. One of the Japanese women let Elena go and walked over to the host to do a product placement.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

Sam simply looked at him with eyes that told the older Winchester that it was a stupid question. The remaining girl held both of Elena's hands behind her back as she continued to struggle. Suddenly there were several large bangs on the doors and the lights began flashing.

"Oh now what?" Dean snapped, turning to glare at the door.

They opened to reveal Castiel walking through. The crowd began cheering at his appearance. The Japanese girl let Elena go in surprise at seeing the angel appear. Elena ripped the tape off of her mouth and ran forward.

"Cas?" Dean said.

"Is this another trick?" Sam said, his voice hoarse.

"It's me. Uh, what are you doing here?" Castiel asked as Elena stood behind him.

"Us? What are you doing here?" Dean demanded.

"Looking for you. You've been missing for days." Castiel said.

"So get us the hell out of here, then!" Elena said, grabbing his hand.

"Let's go." Cas reached out to touch Sam on the forehead as Elena reached out to touch Dean's hand.

Suddenly they were no longer on the stage. Elena looked around to see that she was in the warehouse again.

"I thought I would save you the pain of seeing your boy toy get his nutcracker moment." Gabriel said.

"Get them out of there, now." She snapped when she turned to glare at him.

"Not gonna happen sugar. Fortunately, you're not needed for a while so you and I need to talk. I am doing this for you, you have to realize that. You are less than a month away from the end of the line. If I can get the boys to say yes before then…" he began.

"That isn't your choice, Gabriel. How many different ways to I have to say that?" Elena said desperately.

"It's my family, Elena! I am tired of seeing them fight! I just want it to be over and this is how it ends! Now play your role!" he shouted and it was the first time Elena had seen him truly lose control.

"You cannot ask me to sit back and let you force them into letting two angels take over their bodies and, in the process, most likely be destroyed." She said, shaking her head.

"That is exactly what I'm asking you to do." Gabriel said.

"Well I'm not going to do it." She said stubbornly.

"Then I'm going to keep you quiet. If you try to intervene again, I'm going to be forced to hide you away like Cassie."

Elena stared at him.

"I will play this out. I will play your stupid game. But when it comes down to it, you can count on me taking their side. And if you'd pull your head out of your ass, you'd realize that you should take their side too." Elena said.

"I'm on my side, darling. The only side that's ever gonna do me any good." Gabriel said.

"That's not true. If you would try to be on our side, you might find that it'll do you a lot of good. Now take me back. I'll do whatever and say whatever as long as you don't try to make me make them say yes." Elena said, crossing her arms.

The archangel sighed exasperatedly before snapping his fingers. Elena looked around to see that she was standing in a hotel bathroom. She looked down and her eyes bugged as she took in what she was wearing.

"I hate you, you asshole." She muttered, somehow knowing that Gabriel could hear her.

She looked up at the door and saw a sign on it.

**Don't walk out until Dean reassures Sam that he's doing research**.

"What does that even mean?" she wondered.

"Hey there, Sam. What's happening?" she heard Dean's muffled voice.

"Oh, nothing. Um. Just the end of the world." Sam answered and laughing sounded outside of the room.

She quickly realized that they were on a sitcom.

"You're gonna need a bigger mouth." Sam said and laughter sounded once again.

"Hey, uh, have you done your research yet?" Sam asked and Elena looked down with uncertainty before walking to the door.

"Oh, yeah. All kinds of research. All night." Dean said and Elena reached out to open the door.

"Yeah? Hm." Sam said skeptically as she opened the door.

Wolf whistles sounded and she suddenly knew what to do like it was rehearsed.

"Oh, Dean..." she said in a seductive voice, playing with the belt on her robe that didn't cover as much as it should have.

Sam looked at her with surprise. She saw that the set was a brightly lit room that looked like a cleaner and nicer version of the motels they usually stayed in.

"We have some more research to do." She said in a breathy voice, smirking at his shocked expression at what she was wearing.

Sam folded his arms, trying to look as though he was berating his brother.

"Dean..." he said.

Dean turned to face the camera that was on the edge of the stage.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean said, looking fake frustrated.

"Elena, you should have known better. We have work to do." Sam said with a smile.

"But we did do work!" she shrugged, walking up to stand behind Dean, snaking her arms around his waist as she leaned her head against his back.

Her heels were tall enough that she could put her chin on his shoulder. There was another laugh track and Dean forced a smile to Sam.

"How long do we have to keep doing this?" he muttered as they came together while still trying to stay in character.

"I don't know." Sam replied and applause sounded.

"Maybe forever?" Elena said, sounding unsure.

More applause and laughter.

"We might die in here." Sam said.

The laughing sounded again.

"How was that funny? Vultures." Dean snapped.

Suddenly the door flew open and Castiel ran in, looking a little beat up.

"You okay?" Dean said, dropping the act as they walked to him.

Cas looked out at the audience with confusion before turning to them.

"I don't have much time." he said.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"I got out." Cas said.

"From where?" Dean questioned.

"Listen to me. Something is not right. This thing is much more powerful than it should be." Castiel said quickly.

Elena was confused now. Didn't Castiel know that this was Gabriel doing everything? How was it possible that he didn't know?

"What thing… the Trickster?" Dean asked.

"If it is a trickster." Cas said doubtfully.

Elena opened her mouth but suddenly found duct tape on it again.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked as they didn't realize that Elena couldn't speak.

Suddenly Castiel was flung backwards and he fell to the ground after hitting a wall. Gabriel suddenly ran in to immense applause and cheers.

"Hello!" he said, bowing.

Castiel stood and Elena saw that he had duct tape on his mouth as well. He looked at her with wide eyes before looking at Gabriel with a stunned look.

"Thank you. Thank you, ladies." Gabriel said, soaking up the attention.

"Hi, Castiel!" he said, smirking before gesturing to him, causing him to disappear.

"You know him?" Sam demanded.

"Where did you just send him?" Dean asked, finally noticing that Elena had duct tape on her face and he helped her as she struggled to get it off.

"Relax, he'll live… maybe." Gabriel shrugged.

"All right, you know what? I am done with the monkey dance, okay? We get it." Dean snapped as he gave up on the duct tape and started forward to glare at him.

"Yeah? Get what, hotshot?" Gabriel asked.

"Playing our roles, right? That's your game?" Dean scoffed.

"That's half the game." Gabriel said with a wink.

"What's the other half?" Sam demanded.

"Play your roles out there." Gabriel said, gesturing to the door.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean said.

"Oh, you know. Sam starring as Lucifer. Dean starring as Michael. Your celebrity death match. Play your roles." Gabriel said and they finally understood the message that he was trying to get to them.

"You want us to say yes to those sons of bitches?" Sam demanded.

"Hells yeah. Let's light this candle!" Gabriel said, grinning.

"We do that, the world will end." Sam said desperately.

"Yeah? And whose fault is that? Who popped Lucifer out of the box? Hm? Look, it's started. You started it. It can't be stopped. So let's get it over with!"

Sam glared at him.

"Heaven or hell, which side you on?" Dean said.

Elena began scraping at the duct tape, wondering why in the hell she couldn't get it off.

"I'm not on either side." Gabriel said, his eyes flashing to Elena.

"Yeah, right. You're grabbing ankle for Michael or Lucifer. Which one is it?" Dean demanded.

"You listen to me, you arrogant dick. I don't work for either of those S.O.B.s. Believe me." Gabriel said, glaring at Dean as his patience began to wear thin.

"Oh, you're somebody's bitch." Dean said, smirking.

Suddenly he grabbed Dean by the collar and slammed him against the wall. With his momentary frustration breaking his concentration on other things, Elena was able to rip the duct tape off of her mouth but it hurt like a bitch and she let out a cry as tears sprung to her eyes.

"Don't you ever, ever presume to know what I am. Now listen very closely. Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna suck it up, accept your responsibilities, and play the roles that destiny has chosen for you." Gabriel snapped.

"And if we don't?" Sam asked.

Gabriel turned to grin at him. Elena considered ripping him off of Dean but she wasn't stupid. Gabriel was still an archangel. He was still a thousand times stronger than her and he could smite her where she stood.

"Then you'll stay here in TV Land. Forever. Three hundred channels and, uh, nothing's on." Gabriel said, snapping his fingers.

* * *

Elena looked around to see that they were outside at a crime scene. They were all in business clothing and Dean and Sam were both wearing matching blue button down shirts and sunglasses even though it was nighttime.

"Oh, come on." Dean snapped, pissed.

"So, what do you think?" a police officer asked from next to Dean.

"What do I think? I think go screw yourself, that's what I think." Dean growled, making the man walk away with wide eyes.

"You gotta calm down." Sam sighed.

"Calm down? I am wearing sunglasses at night." Elena let out a giggle as he yanked them off. "You know who does that? No-talent douchebags."

Sam nodded in agreement.

"I hate this game. I hate that we're in a procedural cop show and you wanna know why? Because I hate procedural cop shows. There's like three hundred of them on television and they're all the freaking same. It's ooh, plane crashed here… oh shut up." Dean growled.

Sam suddenly noticed something at the crime scene and took off his sunglasses.

"Hey." He said.

"What?" Elena asked, messing with the Miami PD badge that was around her neck.

"Check out sweet tooth over there." He pointed at the police officer who Dean yelled at.

He was sucking on a lollipop.

"Think that's him?" Dean asked.

"Just, um, follow my lead." Sam said.

Elena followed as they walked over to the body. They both put their sunglasses as a police officer lifted the tape for them to duck under.

"You, uh, you okay?" the police officer who they thought was Gabriel asked Dean.

"Yeah. What do we got?" Dean asked in a huskier voice than he usually had.

"Well, aside from the ligature marks around his neck, he has what appears to be a roll of quarters jammed down his throat." The officer said.

Dean took off his sunglasses and pulled out a flashlight to bend down and take a closer look. Sam took off his sunglasses as well.

"Well I say, jackpot." Sam said dramatically.

Elena shook her head and hid her smile as the officer snorted in amusement.

"Also, there is a stab wound to the lower abdomen." He said, pointing at the bleeding wound with his lollipop.

Dean took a stick from the ground and poked at the wound, making Elena grimace before she remembered that the Trickster was supposed to be able to be killed by a stake dipped in dead man's blood.

"Well I say, no guts, no glory." Dean said as he stood and put his sunglasses back on.

The officer laughed as Sam put his on as well.

"Get that guy a Tums." Sam said.

Elena shook her head and rolled her eyes at them.

"Gutter ball." Dean said.

The officer kept laughing as he turned to walk off.

"Good one, guys." He threw over his shoulder.

Suddenly Dean came up from behind him and stabbed the stick into his heart, grinning triumphantly as he gurgled and dropped the lollipop. The man collapsed to the ground and Elena looked to see that none of the extras noticed or cared about what just happened.

Suddenly someone started laughing behind them and they turned to see Gabriel standing there dressed as another officer.

"You've got the wrong guy, idiots." He scoffed.

"Did we?" Dean said, his eyes flickering to Sam who walked up behind Gabriel and stabbed him in the heart with the stake.

Elena winced as he collapsed onto his stomach. They were suddenly standing in the warehouse in the clothes that they were all wearing before the whole thing started. Elena looked down at Gabriel's unmoving figure.

"Let's get out of here." Dean sighed, turning to walk off.

"He's not dead." Elena said, turning to look at Dean.

"What do you mean? That's how we kill a Trickster." Dean said.

"You heard Cas, didn't you? He's not a Trickster. You saw they recognized each other. Can you really not see it?" Elena said.

"Son of a bitch." Dean growled and turned around to look at Sam but he was no longer there.

"Where'd he go?" he said.

"We're still in TV land because he's not dead." Elena said, turning to walk out of the warehouse.

"Sam?" she shouted, looking around.

Dean joined her, yelling for him as well.

"Dean? Elena?" they heard.

It was Sam but his voice sounded odd. They walked towards the car because that's where it sounded like it was coming from.

"Sam? Where are you?" Dean said.

"I don't know." Sam said and they both realized where he was as they approached the car.

"Oh crap. I don't think we killed the Trickster." Sam's voice said, coming from the radio of the car.

"It's not a Trickster. But I think I know what we're dealing with." Dean said.

* * *

"How did you know that it wasn't the Trickster?" Dean asked Elena as they stood on the side of the road and he dug around the trunk of the Impala.

"Dean?" Sam's voice interrupted them.

"What?" Dean snapped.

"That, uh, feels really uncomfortable." Sam admitted.

Dean slammed the trunk shut.

"Ow." Sam complained.

"How did you know?" Dean asked.

Elena sighed and shook her head.

"Because I've known since the beginning." She said.

"What? And you didn't tell us?" Dean demanded.

"You don't think I tried? Every time I did I got whisked away or irremovable duct tape slapped on my mouth!" Elena shot back.

He stared at her for a moment before nodding. Then he walked to the front of the car and turned his head to the sky.

"All right, you son of a bitch! Uncle! We'll do it!" he yelled.

Elena stared at the ground as they waited.

"Should I honk?" Sampala questioned.

"Wow. Sam. Get a load of the rims on you." Gabriel said with a smirk, walking around the Impala.

"Eat me." Sam shot back.

"Okay, boys. Ready to go quietly?" he asked, grinning as he stood in front of them.

"Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast. Nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs." Dean demanded.

"What's the difference? Satan's going to ride his ass one way or another." Gabriel shrugged, grinning.

Dean glared at him and he rollled his eyes before snapping his fingers. Elena and Dean turned to see Sam climb out of the car looking less than thrilled.

"Happy?" Gabriel asked.

"Tell me one thing. Why didn't the stake kill you?" Dean asked.

"I am the Trickster." He shrugged as if it was explanation enough.

"Or maybe you're not." Sam said, holding up a lighter and tossing it down.

Elena sighed as a ring of fire sprung up around him.

"Maybe you've always been an angel." Dean said.

Gabriel turned his gaze on Elena before laughing.

"A what? Somebody slip a mickey in your power shake, kid?" he scoffed.

"I'll tell you what. You just jump out of the holy fire and we'll call it our mistake." Dean said, gesturing to the fire.

Gabriel let out one more laugh before his face became serious and he knew he'd been caught. The scene suddenly transformed and they were in the warehouse once again.

He began clapping.

"Well played, boys. Well played. And you didn't even need Elena to tell you to be able to figure it out. Where'd you get the holy oil?" he asked, grinning at them.

"Well, you might say we pulled it out of Sam's ass." Dean said.

"So… where'd I screw up? Other than trusting that Elena would keep her mouth all the way shut." Gabriel said.

"You didn't. Nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did." Sam said.

"Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon." Dean continued.

"Meaning?" Gabriel asked.

"Well, call it personal experience, but nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family." Dean said with a slight smirk.

"So which one are you? Grumpy, Sneezy, or Douchey?" Sam asked.

Gabriel looked at Elena with an arched eyebrow.

"Do you wanna tell 'em, cupcake?" he asked.

Sam and Dean looked at her with questioning looks. Elena stared at him before sighing.

"Gabriel. This is Gabriel." She said, gesturing to him.

"Gabriel? The archangel?" Sam said.

"Your guardian angel, Gabriel?" Dean said, sounding pissed again.

"Guilty." Gabriel said with a smirk.

"So not only did you know what he was, but you knew who he was this entire time too?" Dean demanded.

"Yeah, Dean. I did." Elena shot back.

"Did you know that he was going to do this?" Dean said.

She looked at the ground.

"Why didn't you warn us?" he demanded.

"Gabriel was going to do this either way! I couldn't stop him. He said that if I kept my mouth shut and I let him play his little game that I could remain with you and protect you the whole time. Which is a good thing because you got freaking shot!" Elena exclaimed.

Dean glared at her before turning to face him.

"How does an archangel become a trickster?" he asked, barely containing the fury in his voice.

"My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Till you two screwed it all up." Gabriel snapped, gesturing to Sam and Dean.

"What did Daddy say when you ran off and joined the pagans?" Dean asked.

"Daddy doesn't say anything about anything." Gabriel scoffed.

"Then what happened? Why'd you ditch?" Sam questioned.

"Do you blame him? I mean, his brothers are heavyweight douchenozzles." Dean offered.

"Shut your cakehole. You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again." Gabriel said and Elena could hear a hint of pain in his voice.

Gabriel drove her crazy most of the time. Especially when he messed with Sam and Dean and made it clear that he wanted them to sacrifice themselves. But when she looked past his hardened mask that was covered in sarcastic comments, she saw someone who was in pain. Someone she could help and that's what drew her to him.

"Then help us stop it." Sam suggested.

"It can't be stopped." Gabriel said, shaking his head.

"You wanna see the end of the world?" Dean demanded.

"I want it to be over! I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you two! Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins, I just want it to be over." Gabriel sighed, sounding tired.

"It doesn't have to be like that. There has to be some way to, to pull the plug." Sam said desperately.

Gabriel suddenly bursted into laughter.

"You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate." He said, gesturing to the brothers.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked.

Both of them were steadily avoiding looking at Elena and that was driving her insane.

"You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other." Gabriel said, making Elena's eyes widen.

She hadn't heard this prophecy.

"What the hell are you saying?" Dean growled.

"Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always." Gabriel informed them.

There was a long pause in which Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"No. That's not gonna happen." Dean finally said, turning to face him.

"I'm sorry. But it is." Gabriel sighed, sounding truly sorry for once.

"Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be." Gabriel said, turning to look at Elena, who was remaining quiet.

She knew that Dean was pissed at her and maybe Sam was even mad at her. So she wasn't going to say a word.

"So. Boys. Now what? We stare at each other for the rest of eternity?" Gabriel asked.

"Well, first of all, you're gonna bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him." Dean said.

"Oh am I?" Gabriel asked, smirking.

"Yeah. Or we're going to dunk you in some holy oil and deep-fry ourselves an archangel." Dean said.

"Dean, you…"

He cut her off with one look and she snapped her mouth shut again. Gabriel glared between them before snapping his fingers. Cas appeared worse for wear but alive.

"Cas, you okay?" Dean asked.

"I'm fine." Cas said.

"Hey, bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful." Gabriel said, grinning tauntingly at him.

Castiel glared at him.

"I told you that I didn't like it. I told you that playing around with them was taking it too far. You put Elena in a very difficult situation." Cas snapped.

"And I told you that it was none of your business." Gabriel shot back.

"You knew too?" Dean asked, staring at Cas.

"I didn't know that he would go about it like this. I had no idea that he was posing as the Trickster. It took me by surprise." Cas said.

Dean shook his head, looking angry.

"Okay, we're out of here. Come on, Sam." Dean said as he turned to walk away.

Cas and Sam followed him but Elena stood there, looking at Gabriel.

"Uh. Okay. Guys?" he called.

They turned to look at him.

"So, so what? Huh? You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?" he scoffed, looking over at Elena before looking back at Dean.

"No. We're not, 'cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family!" Dean shouted before pulling the fire alarm.

They all looked up in time to see the sprinklers go off. Elena looked back to see Dean staring at her expectantly. Part of her wanted to snap at him that she was surprised he still wanted her to come with him. She turned to Gabriel.

"You can't keep playing with us like this." she said.

He stared back at her.

"I shouldn't have helped you. I should have fought harder to tell them. Dean is right. You are just as messed up as the rest of us." She sighed, turning to walk off as she shivered in the freezing cold water.

"Dean!" Gabriel called before the hunter walked out.

They turned back to look at him.

"Why don't you ask Elena about what Zachariah has planned for her?" Gabriel suggested as the holy fire burned out underneath the water.

Elena's eyes widened and she felt panic fill her chest. But the fury that came with his words overrode it and she stared at him with blazing eyes.

"You son of a bitch." She whispered. "I trusted you."

"I thought you learned your lesson. Never trust an angel." He said before disappearing.

Elena remained rooted in her spot, staring at where he was standing before.

"What does he mean?" Dean demanded, his voice loud to be heard over the water.

She turned back to him, soaked through but not caring at all.

"Dean…" she began.

"Tell me what he was talking about!" he shouted as he walked towards her, fury and hurt in his eyes.

Elena tried to hold back her tears as she told him everything. She tried to ignore the increasing coldness in his eyes. But pretty soon, she couldn't tell the difference between the sprinkler water and the tears running down her face. When he turned to walk away, she let out a sob unwillingly.

"Dean!" she cried, stumbling forward.

He didn't turn back. He just slammed the door open and stomped out. Elena let out a wail of sadness as the water continued to pour down on her.

* * *

**I know, the end is horrible.**

**Next: They deal with the aftermath of Gabriel's games as they hunt down the Colt.**

**I started the new story. It is called 'Thunderstruck'. I would love it if you could check it out!**


	11. Feel the Sting of Tears

**Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or Supernatural**

**Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Chapter Title: It Doesn't Matter – Alison Krauss and Union Station**

**A few things:**

**1. Get ready for sassy people in this chapter.**

**2. The italics are Elena remembering the confrontation with Dean after she tells him everything to do with Zachariah.**

**3. There is a big thing happening to do with Elena's abilities in this chapter. So get ready for that too.**

**4. Elena's outfits are on my profile.**

**5. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

Elena gasped, sitting straight up in the bed. She ran her fingers through her hair as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. She scooted back to press her back against the headboard as she curled her knees up to her chest. Her dreams had been vivid ever since their confrontation with Gabriel two days ago. Her eyes slid up and she immediately caught sight of Dean across the room lying on the couch. His back was facing her and he was fully dressed in his clothing. Elena stared at him for a moment before sliding out of bed and walked into the bathroom, waiting to turn the light on until she shut the door so that she wouldn't bother Sam and Dean.

She looked in the mirror at the bags underneath her eyes and sighed softly, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. As she looked down at the plain white counter, tears blurred her vision before she could help it.

"_Why don't you tell Sam what you've been hiding from us? From me? See how he takes it!"_

Elena shook her head, rubbing her eyes until the burning tears went away. When she heard voices, she froze to look at the door.

"_Dean, calm down. Hear her…"_

It was Dean and he was murmuring softly, making her think that he was on the phone.

"_Sammy I swear to God if you say hear her out!"_

"… just don't lose him, Cas." she heard Dean murmur distinctly.

"_Cas? You knew about this? Why the hell didn't you tell me?!"_

She heard shuffling and a grunt sounded.

"Cas found Crowley. We gotta go."

"_Why the hell did you think it would be okay to keep this from me?"_

Elena walked to the door and reached out to open it, wanting to be a coward and hide in the bathroom, pretending like she hadn't heard anything. But that wouldn't work. They were going to hunt down a possibly dangerous demon. They would need their guardian.

"_I don't give a damn that you were trying to protect me! Fuck trying to protect me! You lied to me! You kept this from me!"_

She opened the door slowly, putting a mask on her face to guard her emotions.

"_Sam don't tell me to calm down! She put her life in danger because she thought that she knew better than us! That she could deal with this on her own!"_

Despite wanting to so badly, she didn't drop her eyes when they turned to look at her as she emerged from the bathroom. But Dean didn't look at her. Not really. His eyes simply flickered over her before returning to the bag he was packing up.

"Cas…"

"… found Crowley. I heard." She cut Sam off, noticing how hoarse her voice sounded.

"_Aren't you going to yell at me and storm out too, Sam?"_

"Good. We're, uh… we're gonna go ahead and take off. Head that way. Crowley's house is protected with angel-sigils so Cas can't get in." Sam explained.

"_I'm not mad. I understand why you did what you did. You weren't lying just to lie. You were protecting us."_

Elena nodded, grabbing clothes to change into.

"_Dean refuses to see it that way."_

"We might need a distraction to get us into Crowley's gates." Dean said.

Elena fought the urge to sigh heavily, turning back to her bag. That was the only words he ever said that might have possibly been directed towards her and even then there was a chance that he wasn't even trying to talk to her.

"_He'll come around."_

She pulled out a different outfit, walking into the bathroom to change.

"_What if he doesn't?"_

* * *

Elena grumbled quietly as she stumbled up to the intercom.

"Hello?" A staticky voice said once she pressed the button.

"Hello? My car broke down. I… I need some help." She stammered, trying to sound as panicked as she could.

"I'll be down in a minute." The man said.

She wrapped her arms around her waist as she waited. Suddenly the gates swung open, creaking as they did so. Two men approached her.

"Evening, pretty lady. Get yourself on in here." One of them said with a grin.

"I just need to make a call." She said, trying to sound as unsure as she could.

"You don't need to call anyone, baby." He said, grinning back at the other man.

"We're the only help you're ever gonna need." The other guy said, smirking.

"You know what? I think I should wait by my car." Elena said, turning to walk off.

The first man grabbed her shoulder, whirling her around as his eyes went black.

"We said, get your ass in here." He snapped.

Elena looked up at him and suddenly grabbed his throat, throwing him to the ground easily with her knee on his chest. She looked back to see Sam shove the demon-killing knife into the other demon. Then he tossed it to her and she effortlessly disposed of the one that was struggling underneath her grip.

"Nice work." Sam said, holding his hand out to help her up as Dean walked past them with a bag of weapons, a pair of wire cutters in his hand.

"Thanks." She said, walking with Sam in the same direction that the older brother took off towards.

When they made it to the front lawn, they separated, Dean tossing Sam the wire cutters as he and Elena walked towards the house. He eased open a window and stepped back to let her climb through first.

"Sure that dress was a good idea? It's short." He whispered as they crept through the house.

Elena looked at him with surprise. This was the first time he'd addressed her directly in a couple of days.

"If I wanted someone to tell me I dressed like a slut, I would have asked." she snapped, the words slipping out of her mouth before she could help it.

"I wasn't saying that." he hissed.

"Yeah and I'm sure you weren't thinking it either." She said sarcastically as Dean pulled out a red spray paint can and bent over a decorative rug.

After a few minutes, the electricity sudden cut out and they heard footsteps approaching them as they backed away from the rug. An impeccably dressed man walked in, flicking the light switches.

"It's Crowley, right?" Dean said, both of them listening for Sam to walk in after he cut the electricity.

"So. The Hardy Boys and their very own Nancy Drew finally found me. Took you long enough." the man said in an English accent.

Elena was holding Ruby's knife and Dean a shotgun. Crowley moved to approach them but stopped short just before stepping on the rug. He bent down and pulled a corner back, revealing the devil's trap that Dean drew onto it.

"Do you have any idea how much this rug cost?" he said, annoyed.

Suddenly two demons launched forward and grabbed them from behind, disarming and pinning their hands behind their back easily. Another demon dragged Sam in, who looked less than pleased as a trickle of blood slid down his cheek from a cut on his eyebrow. Crowley held up a gun that Elena assumed to be the Colt.

"This is it, right? This is what it's all about." He asked, aiming the gun at Dean.

Elena stared with horror as he cocked it. But then he adjusted the aim and proceeded to shoot all three demons that were holding them.

"We need to talk. Privately." He said as they looked down at the dead demons.

"What the hell is this?" Dean demanded as they followed him into a comfortable living room.

"Do you know how deep I could have buried this thing?" Crowley said, turning to them.

He waved a hand and the doors suddenly slammed shut.

"There's no reason you or anyone should know this even exists, except that I told you." he said, nodding at them.

"You told us." Sam scoffed.

"Rumors, innuendo, sent out on the grapevine." He shrugged, leaning against an ornate fireplace.

"Why? Why tell us anything?" the younger Winchester questioned.

Crowley aimed at him again before smirking.

"I want you to take this thing to Lucifer and empty it into his face." he said simply.

"Uh-huh, okay, and why exactly would you want the devil dead?" Dean said, skeptical.

"It's called…" Crowley said, putting the gun down on the mantle above the fireplace. "… survival. Well, I forgot you two at best are functioning morons."

Crowley rolled his eyes as he spoke and Elena simply stared at him, unimpressed. She already put together why he would want to kill Lucifer. It wasn't hard to figure out based on what she'd heard about the devil from Gabriel.

"You're functioning... morons..." Dean stammered, unable to come up with a good comeback.

"But your girl here, I've heard she's a smart one. Can you tell us, darling?" Crowley asked, smirking at her.

Elena stared at him for a moment before sighing.

"Lucifer isn't a demon. He's an angel. An angel famous for his hatred of humankind. To him, we're just filthy bags of pus. If that's the way he feels about us, what can he think about you?" Elena shrugged, sitting on the arm of a chair.

"Right you are." Crowley said, nodding at her.

"But he created you." Sam argued.

"To him, we're just servants. Cannon fodder. If Lucifer manages to exterminate humankind, we're next. So, help me, huh? Let's all go back to simpler, better times, back to when we could all follow our natures. I'm in sales, dammit! So what do you say if I give you this thing, and you go kill the devil?" he said, gesturing to the Colt.

"How do we know you're not selling us out to Lucifer? That you won't call him as soon as we leave?" Elena asked.

"That's a fair question. The answer is… you don't. You're just gonna have to take it on faith, darling." Crowley said.

Elena rolled her eyes. The last thing she needed was yet another supernatural creature calling her pet names.

"Faith? In you? A demon?" she said.

Crowley shrugged, picking up the Colt to hold it out to Sam, who was closest to him. Sam reached out hesitantly to take it and Elena rolled her eyes at them.

"This is a bad idea." She warned.

"What choice do we have?" Dean shot back.

She turned to glare at him, the first time she'd looked him full in the face. She found that he was glaring right back.

"Uh oh. Do I sense a need for couple's therapy? I know a great girl. Well she's a little… demon-possessed. But she's still great." Crowley said.

"Go fuck yourself." Elena spat, not in the mood to take any shit as she turned to glare at the demon.

Crowley shrugged and turned to look at Sam, who looked as though he wanted to ask something.

"Got a question for the class?" Crowley asked.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the devil is, by chance, would you?" Sam asked hesitantly as though he was unsure that Crowley would even answer, much less answer honestly.

"Thursday, birdies tell me, there's an appointment in Carthage, Missouri." He nodded at Sam.

Sam turned to glance at Dean before nodding. Then he turned back to Crowley and pointed the gun between his eyes, pulling the trigger. Elena rolled her eyes as nothing but a click sounded. Sam stared at the demon, surprised, as Crowley stared back impassively.

"Oh, yeah, right, you'll probably need some more ammunition." Crowley said, turning to walk to a small table with drawers.

He pulled out a leather drawstring bag.

"Oh, uh, excuse me for asking, but aren't you kind of signing your own death warrant? I mean, what happens to you if we go up against the devil and lose?" Dean questioned, watching the demon's every movement closely.

"Number one, he's going to wipe us all out anyway. Two, after you leave here, I go on an extended vacation to all points nowhere. And three, how about you don't miss, okay! Morons!" Crowley shouted, tossing the bag to Dean.

Dean caught it and Sam looked over as he opened it to reveal bullets. Elena stared at Crowley, who waved with a smirk before disappearing.

* * *

Elena blinked as she stared out of the window in the back of the Impala. Dean was driving and Sam was sitting in the passenger seat messing with the Colt.

"_You would do well not to go after Zachariah, Dean."_

She looked down at her hands, twisting them together as the words echoed in her mind.

"_I'm not gonna go after Zach, Cas. But not because you told me not to. The only reason I'm not hunting that son of a bitch down is because we're gonna go find the Colt and we're gonna use it to ice Lucifer. Then there's no reason for him to hold that threat over her head anymore cause I won't have to say yes to Michael to end it."_

When she looked out the window again, she could see the last bits of light disappearing into the horizon. They were close to Bobby's so she knew it wouldn't be much longer before she could run up to the guest room and burrow into a bunch of blankets and block out the world for at least a few minutes.

"_This sounds very idealistic, Dean. What if it doesn't work?" _

She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and pulled it out to see a text from Caroline.

**Still fighting with D?**

She hadn't told Caroline all of the details but the blonde vampire knew the basic story.

**Yep**

"_If it doesn't work I'm gonna shove an angel blade so far up Zachariah's ass that it'll come out of his mouth."_

**Ugh! Men!**

"_I don't think that's physically possible, Dean."_

**What's Tyler done now?**

Elena looked up to see that they were pulling up to the salvage yard. Her cheeks flushed slightly when she remembered her dream.

"_You'd be surprised, Cas. I can do a lot of things if I put my mind to it."_

**It's not Tyler. Klaus is bored and apparently he needs something to fixate on when he's bored. Apparently that something is me. **

"_Then why don't you put your mind to forgiving Elena for something that obviously involved her trying to keep you safe?"_

**Well I suppose it could be worse**.

Elena immediately climbed out of the backseat, her bag in hand because she kept it beside her for a quick escape. She didn't stop to say hello to any of the people in the house so she didn't see that Ellen and Jo Harvelle were there along with Cas. She just ran through the house and immediately disappeared upstairs.

"_That's different, Cas."_

Elena collapsed on the bed and curled up immediately, shoving the heels off and pulling the blankets over her head.

**How could it possibly be worse?**

She found herself agreeing? Nothing Zachariah could do to her could make her feel worse than this, right?

* * *

"No Bobby."

"I'm just sayin'…"

"No."

"Dean…"

"I said no!"

"And I said I don't give a damn! Stomp your ass up those stairs and bring that girl down here!"

Everyone else watched the conversation that they could only describe as a verbal tennis match with rapt attention.

"If she wants to be up there…" the older Winchester brother began.

Bobby cut him off with a groan and turned to Sam.

"Do you think you could go coax her down here?" he asked.

"I can try." Sam said with a bewildered expression.

They watched as he turned to walk upstairs.

"You do realize that you've just sacrificed him to the eternal abyss that is a teenage girl's emotions. Trust me, that's not a good idea." Ellen whispered as Sam walked up the stairs.

"You got any better ideas?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, when he comes downstairs after failing miserably, send the other young girl in the room. They might have something more to talk about." Ellen suggested.

"What? Like Jo's insane crush on Dean?" Bobby hissed back.

Ellen shot him a severe look and he shrugged, wheeling himself away.

* * *

"What do you want, Sam?" Elena said, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"Well, it's just… we're all downstairs. And we're kinda going to confront the devil tomorrow… so…" Elena sat up and he felt relief until he caught sight of the 'are you kidding' look in her eyes.

"You want me to come to your 'we are all probably gonna die tomorrow party'?" she deadpanned.

"Dean is there." he said, cursing in his mind when a flicker of anger showed in her eyes.

"All the more reason to keep my ass in this bed." She shot back, flopping down and pulling the blankets over her head.

"Oh… okay." Sam nodded, practically running out of there in an attempt at awkwardness.

He didn't miss the triumphant look that Ellen sent Bobby when he came down empty-handed with a slightly scared expression.

"Jo?" Ellen said.

"I got it." the girl said, putting down her beer as she stood to walk to the stairs.

Dean snorted and they all turned to look at him.

"Do you have something to add to the conversation, princess?" Bobby demanded.

"If you really think that Elena is going to respond to Jo just because they're both around the same age and female, you're wrong. Cas has a better chance of luring her downstairs." He informed them, playing with a bottle cap.

"Well then maybe you could help us out." Sam snapped.

Dean gave them all a glare before stomping into the kitchen to get a beer.

* * *

A knock sounded on her door and Elena rolled her eyes, sitting up.

"Come in but know that it's hopeless." She said, glaring at the door as it opened.

She was surprised to see Jo walk in.

"Well I am pretty stubborn. You never know." The blonde said, smiling slightly.

"Hi." Elena said, feeling awkward and wondering why they sent her up of all people.

It was as if they didn't know her at all. Cas had a better chance of luring her downstairs.

"I know you and I don't know each other well but I don't want this to be awkward." Jo said.

"It's not awkward. Unless you count the fact that you have a huge crush on Dean and I'm usually the girl that's with him awkward." Elena shrugged, the words flowing out of her mouth before she could stop them.

She instantly looked apologetic.

"Wow, you're blunt." Jo nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Only when I'm emotionally drained and, if there's anything I can call the last few days, it's emotionally draining." Elena sighed, sitting up to lean against the headboard.

"I can imagine. Dean isn't exactly making it easy on you, is he?" the blonde said, her eyes wandering around the room.

"Does he make anything easy?" she mumbled, pulling her knees up to her chest and putting her chin on them.

Jo smiled slightly and looked over at her.

"Wanting to shoot him. He makes it real easy for that urge to flare right up." she said with a grin.

Elena couldn't help the slight smile that bloomed on her face as well.

"I suppose you have a point there." she admitted.

Jo cocked her head to the side.

"You honestly don't have to come down. I mean, I know you didn't need my permission. Just know that there are people that want you downstairs, including Dean even if he doesn't know it." Jo said, standing up.

Elena looked at her with gratefulness as she turned towards the door.

"Jo?" she said.

The blonde turned back to face.

"Could we be friends?" Elena asked.

"I don't see why not. It's not as though I was ever gonna give Dean Winchester a chance with me anyways. You're a braver woman than me, I'll give you that. Falling in love with a guy like that is risky business." Jo said, smiling.

Elena balked at the word and sighed.

"We haven't said it yet." She admitted.

"Said what?" Jo asked.

"The l-word. Now…" Elena trailed off. "Now we might never say it."

Jo sighed and shook her head.

"I refuse to believe that. Your story is too poetic. This is just the bump in the road that gives you a flat tire and strands you on the side of the road for a while. You'll get back on track. I'm certain of it." she assured Elena.

"You know, you're not too bad." Elena nodded.

"You're not too shabby yourself." Jo said with a grin.

Elena smiled as she turned to walk out and left her alone once more.

* * *

"You failed?" Bobby asked incredulously.

"I didn't really try that hard. But I think both of us knew that Elena was not gonna come down after our conversation as soon as I opened the door." Jo shrugged, sitting down again.

They all heard Dean mutter something that sounded similar to "told you so".

"Maybe it is the angel's turn." Ellen suggested.

They all exchanged wary looks, confusing Castiel.

"I was kidding. There is no possible way that he can make it better." Dean said, shaking his head.

"I don't know. Maybe he can." Sam shrugged.

"Is it my turn?" Cas asked.

"Go get 'em, tiger." Ellen winked at him.

"The intricacies of human emotion still somewhat baffle me. If I make it worse, I trust that I will not receive blame for this seeing as Dean warned you that I will not make it better." He said, standing up.

"We won't blame you." Jo assured him.

"Third time's a charm." Bobby said with a roll of his eyes as Cas disappeared from the room.

They heard a startled cry and Bobby sighed as Ellen smirked.

"He's off to a great start." The older Harvelle woman said, amused.

* * *

"Cas! Seriously! The stairs are not far from Bobby's study! You could have walked!" Elena ranted, pressing her hand over her thundering heart.

"I apologize." The angel said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"You're not really going to try to convince me to come downstairs, are you?" she asked, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"That is what I was sent up here to do though I honestly have no idea what to say." He admitted.

She smiled slightly.

"Don't worry about it, Cas. I'm letting you off the hook." She assured him.

He nodded and she could see gratitude in his eyes.

"What's going on down there anyways? Obviously nothing exciting or Bobby would stop sending you guys up here." She s

"Ellen is challenging me to a drinking game. I do not know how this is a game or why it would be amusing." He said, looking confused.

Elena bit her lip, conflicted. Then she sighed and stood.

"Looks like you had the magic words all along, Cas." She said, grabbing clothing to change out of the dress that she'd been wearing.

The angel looked her with an even more confused look.

"You're coming down?" he asked.

"There's no way I'm missing you participating in a drinking game. Wait here." She said, walking into the bathroom to change.

* * *

Everyone looked up with surprise when they heard not one, but two pairs of footsteps walking down the stairs. Elena wasn't wearing any shoes so she was more difficult to hear but she did appear in the doorway walking slightly behind Cas.

"Seriously? It was him?" Bobby said, raising an eyebrow.

"Apparently I had the magic words all along." He said, nodding at them.

Elena didn't look up to make eye contact with any of them, especially not the set of green eyes that she most wanted to look at.

"I came to see how this drinking game is gonna go." she said, watching as Ellen set up two rows of five shot glasses on either side of a table that they'd dragged into the study.

Jo poured whiskey into all of the shot glasses and Ellen sat on one side and Castiel on the other. Ellen downed her glasses, only hesitating on the last one before she finally drank it. She slammed the last shot glass down upside down and looked at Cas.

"All right, big boy." She nodded, indicating that it was his turn as Elena leaned against the doorway to watch.

Two rounds later, Castiel was downing all five of his in a row as Ellen stared at him.

"I think I'm starting to feel something." He announced, sounding exhilarated.

Jo gawked at him as Elena grinned.

"It's gotta be a trap, right?" Sam asked Dean softly as they stared at the Colt sitting on Bobby's desk.

"Sam Winchester, having trust issues with a demon. Well, better late than never." Dean replied without answering his question.

"Thank you again for your continued support." Sam snapped.

"You're welcome." Dean shot back.

They clinked their beer bottles together before drinking.

"You know, trap or no trap, we got a snowball's chance, we gotta take it, right?" Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, I suppose." Sam said.

"Besides, I'm not sure it is a trap. Check it out. I mean, Carthage is lit up like a Christmas tree with Revelation omens. And look at this."

Elena turned to walk into the kitchen to grab her own beer as they discussed the devil. When she came back in, Sam and Dean seemed to be arguing. She curled up on the couch and looked down at her bottle.

"Look, I go against Satan and screw the pooch, okay. We've lost a game piece. That we can take. But if you're there, then we are handing the devil's vessel right over to him. That's not smart." Dean said in a hushed voice.

"Since when have we ever done anything smart?" Sam scoffed.

"I'm serious, Sam." Dean fired back.

"So am I. Haven't we learned a damn thing? If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it together. Besides, we have Elena and Cas and even if they can't take on the devil they can sure as hell get us out of there if things go bad." Sam shrugged.

They stared at each other for a long moment before both of them looked away.

"Okay. But it's a stupid frigging idea." Dean said, looking past Sam to catch sight of Cas and Ellen going at yet another round.

"Boy, talk about stupid ideas." Sam sighed.

"Good God. True, that." Dean nodded, walking into the kitchen.

Sam walked over to Elena.

"You could go try to talk to him." he suggested.

She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, cause he'll talk." She said with a roll of her eyes.

Sam sighed and pushed her up and off of the couch.

"You know I could easily overpower you, right?" Elena asked, her voice emotionless as he shoved her into the kitchen.

"I know." He agreed, stepping backwards once she was in there.

Dean turned to see her standing there and sighed.

"Wasn't my idea." She snapped before he could say anything.

"I'm gonna kill Sammy." Dean growled, shoving the fridge closed as he opened the fresh beer he pulled out.

Elena shook her head and moved past him, walking towards the door.

"If it causes you that much pain to be in a room with me, maybe I should just…" she cut off, looking down at her hands.

"You should just… what?" he said, urging her to finish the sentence.

"Nothing. Nevermind. I wouldn't do it anyways." She snapped, slamming the kitchen door open and stomping outside.

Dean didn't waste a moment before following her.

"Please, finish that sentence!" he yelled as they walked out into the dark night.

"I should just go back to Mystic Falls!" she shouted, turning to glare at him.

He stared at her for a moment.

"You wouldn't do that." he denied.

"That is exactly what I said, genius! Besides, Cas would probably drag me back. Because heaven forbid you two be without your fucking guardian!" she yelled, her frustration and anger boiling over.

"Sweetheart I have lived years without a guardian." Dean said, knowing that the extensive amount of alcohol that he'd consumed was spurring him on.

"Maybe you should tell the damn angels that!" she snapped.

"If they would listen, I would!" he argued.

"Try a little harder!" she screamed, turning to walk through the cars.

"Have you seriously not learned your lesson? There is glass on the ground!" he growled, taking off after her.

"I can heal myself if I do get a piece of glass in my foot so do me a favor and stop with the concerned crap!" she hissed over her shoulder.

"Yeah cause how dare I try to take care of you every once in a while!"

"Don't you fucking dare!" she screamed, whirling around as she stopped to glare at him with fury in her eyes.

"Why do you insist on taking care of everyone else?! Why can't you tell them what's going on and let them handle it sometimes?!" he growled, advancing on her.

"Oh so now you want to hear my side of things? Now you want me to tell you what happened with Gabriel and Zachariah? Well it's too damn late, Dean! We're confronting the devil tomorrow. Chances are one of us is gonna die! And I'm not gonna let this be that scene where we get everything off of our chests and make up like fools just because we're facing our own mortality in six hours! It's not that easy!"

"Well then what the hell do you want to do?" he yelled.

"Leave me alone!" she shouted back, turning to stomp off again.

* * *

"Where did they go?" Bobby asked as he wheeled in with a camera on his lap.

"Mommy and Daddy are fighting again." Sam sighed, sitting on the couch.

Even from where they were, they could hear Dean and Elena's raised voices from far off.

"Man that girl can bellow." Bobby said.

"Yeah." Everyone else agreed except for Castiel, who was looking slightly dazed.

* * *

When Elena reached the doors of the barn, she stopped short and began to back away, bumping into a warm chest and stumbling sideways. His arms caught her but she struggled out of them.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone." She snapped, wrenching herself out of his grip.

"I didn't listen." He replied.

"Do you ever?" she huffed, turning to stare at him.

His eyes blazed through the darkness and she felt his body heat because of how close they were standing.

"I keep trying to understand why you would keep this from me. Why you would lie for so long. I honestly can't come up with a legitimate reason." He mumbled.

"If you would actually let me speak, you might hear my legitimate reason." Elena snapped, turning to whisk by him and walk back to the house.

He caught her arm and held her in place.

"Tell me." he said in a low voice.

She stared at him for a moment.

"You would have said yes." She admitted.

He looked at her with surprise.

"I'm not that…"

"Stupid?" she interrupted him, scoffing.

"It wouldn't have been stupid, not in your mind. You would have thought you were being brave, sacrificing yourself for me. Dean I'm your guardian before anything else. That is what I was literally created to be. I am supposed to protect you from every single threat that is out there. But the single greatest threat that I will ever face and have to defend you from is you. You are always going to be your own worst enemy. I am always going to have to protect you from yourself. I wasn't keeping Zachariah's threat from you because I liked it or because it brought me joy to know something that you didn't. I was keeping it from you to keep you safe because I knew you'd do something stupid if you knew. You would get yourself hurt or killed. I wasn't being an overly emotional teenage girl when I made the decision not to tell you. I was being your guardian. And no matter how angry you are with me or how much you might hate me, if I were to go back I would make the same decision over and over again."

He stared at her, shock in his eyes and his mouth slight agape. Elena pulled her arm out of his grip and turned to walk past him.

"I don't hate you." he said softly.

Elena stopped short and squeezed her lips together. She wanted to answer that she loved him. That she would do anything for him. But it couldn't come out for some reason. And she didn't want it to come out. It wasn't the right moment. It wasn't the right time to make such a claim.

"They're gonna want us back in the house." She murmured, walking past him and up to the house.

She heard him following her as they walked into the kitchen. Everyone turned to look at them with questioning gazes but none of them voiced their thoughts, seeing how drained the two looked.

"Everybody get in here! It's time for the lineup. Usual suspects in the corner." Bobby announced, breaking the silence as they walked into the study.

"Oh come on, Bobby. Nobody wants their picture taken." Ellen sighed.

"Hear, hear." Sam agreed.

"Shut up. You're drinking my beer." Bobby growled as he fiddled with the camera he had set up on a tripod.

They lined up, Elena between Cas and Dean shifting uncomfortably.

"Anyway, I'm gonna need something to remember your sorry asses by." Bobby said, rolling himself backwards to position himself between Jo and Ellen.

"Ha! Always good to have an optimist around." Ellen scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Bobby's right. Tomorrow we hunt the devil. This is our last night on earth." Castiel said.

All of their manufactured grins faded. Elena felt a rough hand slide into hers and squeeze as the camera flashed.

* * *

Elena looked around with alert eyes as Dean drove the car slowly through the downtown area of Carthage. Both of the brothers were holding their phones out the window.

"You getting a signal?" Sam asked Dean.

"No, nothing. Nice and spooky." Dean replied, snapping his phone closed and waving Ellen forward, who was driving behind them.

"Place seem a little empty to you?" Ellen asked.

No one had to grace that with an answer. The town was deserted.

"We're gonna go check out the PD. You guys stay here, see if you can find anybody." Dean said.

"Okay." Ellen said.

"Elena?" Sam said.

"I'm on it." Elena sighed, climbing out of the car and grabbing her shotgun just in case.

There was also a gun in the back of her pants and a knife in her boot. They'd decided that Elena would stay with Cas just in case he needed to take her back and forth between the two groups until they came back together. She walked up to Ellen's car as she parked. Her and Jo got out but Castiel remained in the back seat. Jo knocked on the window as they waited.

"Ever heard of a door handle?" she said sarcastically.

"Of course I have." He said from behind her, startling her as Elena smirked.

Castiel wasn't paying attention to them. His gaze was on the deserted street and his brow was deeply furrowed.

"What is it, Cas?" Elena asked, concerned with the suspicious look on his face.

"This town's not empty." He replied, looking over at her. "Reapers."

"Reapers? As in more than one?" Ellen asked.

"They only gather like this at times of great catastrophe. Chicago Fire, San Francisco Quake, Pompeii." He explained.

"All right. That's not creepy at all." Elena sighed.

"Their senses are too dull to perceive them but…" Cas reached out and touched Elena's hand.

She gasped when she suddenly saw dozens of men standing in the street all looking up at one building.

"I take it back. This is very creepy." Elena said.

She turned to see Cas squinting at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I had a hunch that Gabriel gave you some of his essence but I did not think it to be so powerful. He poured part of himself into you." he said, making Elena's eyes widen.

"Excuse me?" Ellen said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a long story." Elena said, not looking away from Cas.

"Longer than you being a guardian? Because that's pretty long." Ellen said.

"It goes back a thousand years, so yeah, pretty long." Elena said, finally looking back at her.

"Oh." The older Harvelle woman said, nodding.

"Excuse me, I need to find out why they're here." Cas said, not letting go of Elena's hand as he pulled her forward.

"We're supposed to stay with Ellen and Jo, Cas." Elena argued, following him.

He turned to look into the eyes of a reaper. The old man didn't even acknowledge that he was standing there.

"These reapers hold the answer to why Lucifer is in Carthage." He said, looking up at the building where a reaper was staring down at them.

The man suddenly turned and walked off, the first of the reapers to show any sign of life.

"You should stay with the Harvelles. I will return." Cas said, letting go of her hand and cutting off her ability to see the reapers.

He disappeared and she looked up to see that he was standing in the same window that the reaper had just been in. He nodded at her before turning to walk off.

Elena turned to talk to Ellen and Jo but she was suddenly staring down at the street from the window.

"What the hell?" she muttered, turning to see Cas walking down the hallway quietly.

"Hello, brother." she heard a voice say before a white light blinded their vision.

* * *

"Station's empty." Dean said as they met in the town square.

"So's everything else." Jo replied.

"Have you seen Cas and Elena?" Ellen asked, looking concerned.

"What? They were with you." Sam said, his eyes wide as he looked at Dean and then back at Ellen.

"Nope. Cas went after the reapers and Elena just disappeared right after he did." Ellen explained.

"Reapers?" Dean said quickly.

"He saw reapers? Where?" Sam demanded.

"Well, kind of everywhere." Jo shrugged.

"And Elena went with him? She was supposed to stay with you, protect you." Dean said, sounding frustrated.

"No, Elena disappeared after Cas. She was turning to walk to us. I'm not sure that she really had much of a choice." Ellen explained.

Dean and Sam looked at each other warily.

* * *

Elena ran into the room to see Castiel standing in the middle of a ring of holy fire.

"Elena?" he said, confused at why she was there.

"Cas." She said, darting forward to find a way to get him out.

Her body was suddenly frozen in its spot. Cas' eyes flickered past her and lit up with recognition.

"Lucifer." He said.

Elena's eyes widened and she turned her head to see a man in the shadows.

"So I take it you're here with the Winchesters." Lucifer said, his arms crossed over his chest as he walked against the wall.

"We came alone." Cas said quickly, his eyes narrowed.

"Loyalty. Such a nice quality to see in this day and age. Castiel, right? Castiel. I'm told you came here in an automobile." Lucifer said in an amused voice.

"Yes." He nodded, resigned that he could not fool the devil.

"What was that like?" Lucifer questioned.

Cas looked around, his eyes wide as he searched for an escape.

"Um. Slow. Confining." He explained as Elena kept her eyes on the devil.

He finally stepped out of the shadows and her eyes widened. This was the same man she saw in her apocalyptic dream in Mystic Falls right after Esther was killed. How could she possibly have known what he was going to look like?

"What a peculiar thing you are." Lucifer murmured.

Elena squinted at his face and saw burns on his forehead and cheek. His vessel looked less than healthy, pale and near-death.

"What's wrong with your vessel?" Cas asked, noticing the same thing.

"Yes. Um. Nick is wearing a bit thin, I'm afraid. He can't contain me forever, so…" Lucifer shrugged, trailing off.

"You…" Cas stepped forward before stopping, the fire separating him from getting in Lucifer's face. "You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won't let you."

"Castiel. I don't understand why you're fighting me, of all the angels." Lucifer said with a confused look.

"You really have to ask?" Cas asked.

"I rebelled, I was cast out. You rebelled, you were cast out. Almost all of heaven wants to see me dead, and if they succeed, guess what? You're their new public enemy number one. We're on the same side, like it or not, so why not just serve your own best interests? Which in this case just happen to be mine?" Lucifer asked, spreading his arms out in a welcoming motion.

Elena let her eyes flicker between the two, lost on what to say in this situation. She was looking at the devil. The real devil. The actual manifestation of Satan himself.

"I'll die first." Castiel spat.

Lucifer simply smirked before turning to Elena.

"I'm so sorry. My manners are lacking these days. I've heard it happens after being trapped in a cage by your own brothers. You are the lovely Elena." he said, looking her up and down.

She simply glared at him.

"I have nothing to say to you." she said, finally finding her voice.

"Don't worry. I'll soon change that." he said, smiling as he approached her.

* * *

"Well, this is great, been in town twenty minutes and already lost the angel and the guardian up our sleeve." Dean grumbled as they walked down the street with their weapons in hand.

"You think, uh, you think Lucifer got them?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"I don't know what else to think." Dean sighed, worry filling his mind more than he'd like to admit.

"There you are." A voice said behind them.

Everyone turned face the new threat. Dean and Sam immediately recognized her. She was in the same vessel as she was in when she tried to get a demon-possessed Bobby to kill Dean.

"Meg." Sam sighed.

"Shouldn't have come here, boys." She said with a smirk, looking thrilled that they were there despite her words.

"Hell, I could say the same thing for you." Dean said, raising the Colt to point it at her.

"Didn't come here alone, Dean-o." The demon informed him.

Something splashed in a puddle near her feet and a growl filled the air. Sam, Ellen, and Jo whirled around in circled looking for the source of the noise. Dean didn't move a muscle, staring at the empty spot next to Meg while trying to pretend that he wasn't terrified and having flashbacks to the last time he faced one of these things.

"Hellhounds." He said, tilting his head up.

"Yeah, Dean. Your favorite. Come on, boys. My father wants to see you." Meg said, sounding triumphant.

"I think we'll pass, thanks." Sam said instantly, not caring what else she had to say.

"Your call. You can make this easy or you can make it really, really hard. And you don't have your precious guardian here to protect you." She said, obviously hoping that they would go for the second option as it meant more bloodshed for her.

Dean looked back and Ellen nodded at him.

"When have you known us to ever make anything easy?" he said as he turned back.

Meg shook her head as he shifted his aim and fired. Blood spurted from the hellhound that he hit.

"Run!" Sam shouted and they turned to take off.

A hellhound immediately tackled Dean and Jo looked back with wide eyes.

"Dean!" She yelled, running back towards him.

"Jo, stay back!" he shouted, turning to fight off the thing.

Jo fired her shotgun in Dean's direction and Ellen and Sam finally stopped, turning to see what was happening. Jo kept firing, knocking the hellhound further back away from Dean. Suddenly she cried out when another hound leapt at her, digging its claws into her side and ripping her skin easily. She cried out and fell to the ground as Sam and Ellen ran up.

"No!" Ellen screamed as they started firing at the hellhounds as well.

Dean jumped up and scooped Jo into his arms, running past Sam and Ellen. They turned to follow him as he ran to the nearest store, a hardware store. Ellen ran ahead of him to open the door and Sam remained a little behind them to keep shooting. Once Sam was inside, he shut and locked the door. Dean leaned Jo against the counter as she whimpered in pain and blood soaked through her shirt and pants.

"Okay, breathe now…" Ellen said, brushing her hair back as Dean helped Sam chain the doors shut. "Boys, need some help here!"

* * *

"So you are the infamous guardian that I've heard my brothers complaining about so much." Lucifer said as he circled her.

"Well your brothers are kind of whiny." Elena replied, not liking that she was still rooted to the ground where she stood.

He simply smirked as he stood in front of her again. Elena looked over his shoulder to see Castiel looking concerned.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked, not sounding afraid or even emotional.

Her voice held genuine interest.

"Of course not. Why would I want to do something like that?" Lucifer asked.

"I don't know… cause you're the devil? An evil, sadistic bastard? Any of this ring a bell?" Elena asked, wondering why on earth she decided that it was a good idea to be sassy with Lucifer.

He let out a chuckle.

"No, I have every reason for wanting you alive as much as I want Castiel alive. You're rebellious. You don't take any shit from my brothers. You are willing to do whatever it takes to stick it to them." Lucifer said.

"No, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people I love." Elena shot back, glaring at him.

"Well I can help you, if you want." He shrugged, turning to walk around the fire circle.

"And in return you want my soul? No thanks." She snapped.

"No, not your soul. Just your loyalty. I know what Zachariah has threatened to do. I have the power to stop him, if you join me. You can keep going about your life, protecting the Winchesters and all that. I'll even keep your family and friends safe from anyone who seeks to harm them. I can make your life easier than you've ever known. In return for your loyalty, I promise to give Sam back to you whole and undamaged after I'm done with him. I'll even give you Dean back as long as Michael doesn't destroy him. And when it's all over and I have control of this beautiful planet, you will be most beloved. You and the Winchesters." Lucifer offered.

Elena stared at him, her lips pursed. She should have known that he would work like this. He could get in her head and figure out what she wanted most. Sam and Dean safe. Her family safe. That was about it. Her eyes flickered to Cas and he looked afraid, as though he thought she would say yes. Lucifer stared at her, waiting for her answer. She smirked at him and she knew that he thought he had her.

"I'll pass." She said.

His brow furrowed and he shook his head.

"Tell you what, I'll give you some time to think. Whenever you get tired of Zachariah running the show, I'll be waiting on you."

"How generous of you." Elena replied dryly.

"I like you, Elena. I don't want to hurt you. I want you to live and flourish at my side. I would never betray you as my brother did." Lucifer informed her.

"I would hardly call Zachariah's actions a betrayal considering that I never trusted him in the first place." she said.

"I wasn't talking about Zachariah. You did trust dear Gabriel, didn't you?" Lucifer asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm not talking about this with you." Elena snapped.

"He betrayed you. He told Dean about your little secret. He's the reason that you and the elder Winchester's relationship is hanging on a thread." Lucifer shrugged.

Elena bit her lip hard, drawing blood.

"Don't listen to him, Elena. He's attempting to manipulate you." Cas said.

Lucifer smirked and glanced back at Cas, shrugging before turning to her.

"Is anything I'm saying untrue?" he asked.

"No." she said hoarsely, looking up at him. "You're telling the truth."

Castiel stared at her with wide eyes.

"I'm glad you see it that way, Elena." Lucifer said, still smirking.

"Don't start preening, Luci. I said you were telling the truth, which you were, not that I was on your side." She snapped, much to Cas' relief.

Lucifer's eyes narrowed at her.

"You've got quite the mouth on you." he said in a dark voice.

"So I've heard. It hasn't failed me yet." She replied.

* * *

"Gonna be all right." Ellen said as she finished patching Jo up.

Sam handed a bowl of water to her and she nodded at him.

"Thank you." she said.

Sam nodded back and walked over to Dean, who was fiddling with an electronic device.

"How's she holding up?" Dean asked, glancing over at Jo.

Sam didn't say anything and a long pause of silence filled the room.

"Salt lines are holding up?" Sam asked, dropping onto the floor next to him.

"Safe for now." Dean nodded.

"Safer. Trapped like rats." Sam corrected him.

"Hey, you heard Meg. Her father's here. This is our one shot, Sammy. We gotta take it, no matter what." Dean said, looking at him.

He turned back to the device and continued to work on it as no one spoke besides Ellen whispering reassurances to Jo.

"Here we go." Dean said triumphantly.

"Sam, some help here, please?" Ellen asked as Dean's gadget squealed to life.

"K C 5 Fox Delta Oscar, come in." Dean said into the radio.

A few moments of crackling silence came over the radio.

"K C 5 Fox Delta Oscar, go ahead." Bobby's voice said.

"Bobby, it's Dean. We got problems." He said, looking over at Jo.

"It's okay, boy. That's why I'm here." Bobby assured him after a moment of silence "Is everyone all right?"

"No. It's… it's… it's Jo. Bobby, it's pretty bad." Dean stammered, panic finally filling his voice.

"Okay. Copy that. So now we figure out what we do next." Bobby said.

"Bobby, I don't think she's…" Dean broke off, emotion filling his voice.

"I said, what do we do next, Dean?" Bobby said, trying to be strong for him.

Dean sighed, leaning his head forward on his hand.

"Right. Okay, right." he said, swallowing his emotion and adopting a hardened expression.

"Now, tell me what you got." Bobby said.

"Cas and Elena disappeared. Apparently there were a bunch of reapers around and Cas went to investigate. Elena just disappeared. We think…" Dean cut off. "… we think that Lucifer might have them."

Crackling filled the air and Dean knew that Bobby was sighing heavily.

"Before he went missing, did Cas say how many reapers?" the older hunter questioned.

"I don't… he said a lot of things, I guess. Does the number matter? I said that we think the devil has Elena." Dean said, sounding frustrated.

"I heard you, Dean. But the devil's in the details." Bobby said, sounding sympathetic but unwilling to cater to Dean's panic.

Dean started when Ellen tapped on his shoulder and gestured to the radio. He held the mouthpiece up to her.

"Bobby, it's Ellen. The way he was looking, the number of places Castiel's eyes went, I'd say we're talking over a dozen reapers, probably more." She explained.

"I don't like the sound of that." Bobby said.

"Nobody likes the sound of that, Bobby, but what… wh… what does that sound like?" Dean asked.

"It sounds like death, son. I think Satan's in town to work a ritual." Bobby said. "I think he's planning to unleash Death."

"You mean, like, as in this dude and taxes are the only sure thing?" Dean asked, looking up at Ellen with wide eyes.

"As in Death. The horseman. The pale rider in the flesh." Bobby corrected him.

"Unleash? I mean, hasn't Death been tromping all over the place? Hell, I've died several times myself." Dean said.

"Not this guy. This is… this is the angel of death. Big daddy reaper. They keep this guy chained in a box six hundred feet under. Last time they hauled him up, Noah was building a boat. That's why the place is crawling with reapers. They're waiting on the big boss to show." Bobby explained.

"You have any other good news?" Ellen sighed, looking back at Jo who was growing paler by the second.

"In a manner of speaking I been researching Carthage since you've been gone, trying to suss out what the devil might want there. What you just said drops the last piece of the puzzle in place. The angel of death must be brought into this world at midnight through a place of awful carnage. Now, back during the Civil War, there was a battle in Carthage. A battle so intense the soldiers called it the Battle of Hellhole." Bobby informed them.

"Where'd the massacre go down?" Dean questioned.

"On the land of William Jasper's farm." Bobby replied.

* * *

Lucifer was leaning against the wall now just letting his eyes go back and forth between Elena and Castiel, who were staring at each other trying to communicate without speaking. All of their eyes flickered to the door when another person walked in. Elena immediately recognized her as the demon who tried to kill Dean just after Lucifer was released, Meg.

"I got the Winchesters pinned down. For now, at least. What should I do with them?" she said, her eyes flickering to Elena.

"Leave them alone." Lucifer said simply, not moving from where he was leaning against the wall.

"I.. I'm sorry, but are you sure? Shouldn't we…" Meg stammered.

"Trust me, child. Everything happens for a reason." He said, walking forward to stroke her face.

Castiel's eyes flickered upward and Elena looked behind her to see a pipe bolted to the wall.

"Well, Castiel, Elena, you have some time. Time to change your mind?" Lucifer asked, turning back to them as Meg glanced between the two.

"Not happening." They both said at the same time.

"That's a shame." He sighed.

He turned to Meg.

"I'm letting the girl go. Keep Castiel here." He said before snapping his fingers.

Elena looked around to see that she was standing on the street again. This time she was looking at a hardware store. She could hear distant growling.

* * *

"That's my girl, you're okay, honey…" Ellen murmured, holding Jo's head in her lap.

Sam and Dean were standing a few feet away.

"Now we know where the devil's gonna be, we know when, and we have the Colt." Dean said.

"Yeah. We just have to get past eight or so hellhounds and get to the farm by midnight." Sam scoffed, shaking his head.

"Yeah, and that's after we get Jo and Ellen the hell out of town." Dean nodded, agreeing with his skepticism that they would pull it off.

"All without Elena and Cas cause we have no idea where they are. Won't be easy." Sam said.

"Stretcher?" Dean asked.

"I'll see what we got." Sam nodded, turning to see what was in the store.

"Stop. Guys, stop." Jo said weakly as Ellen looked between her and the brothers. "Can we, uh, be realistic about this, please?"

Dean and Sam walked over, squatting next to her.

"Uh! I can't move my legs. I can't be moved. My guts are being held in by an ace bandage. We gotta… we gotta get our priorities straight here." She choked out.

Dean and Sam exchanged a hesitant look.

"Number one, I'm not going anywhere." Jo sighed.

"Joanna Beth, you stop talking like that." Ellen berated her, shaking her head.

"Mom. I can't fight. I can't walk. But I can do something. We got propane, wiring, rock salt, iron nails, everything we need."Jo said, looking at her with wide eyes.

"Everything we need?" Sam questioned.

"To build a bomb, Sam." Jo said, sounding exhausted.

"No. Jo, no." Dean said, shaking his head stubbornly.

"You got another plan? You got any other plan? Those are hellhounds out there, Dean. They've got all of our scents. Those bitches will never stop coming after you. We let the dogs in, you guys hit the roof, make a break for the building next over. I can wait here with my finger on the button, rip those mutts a new one. Or at least get you a few minutes' head start, anyway." Jo explained.

"No, I… I won't let you." Ellen said, tears filling her eyes.

"This is why we're here, right?" Jo shrugged, looking sad as well.

Ellen shook her head, tears running down her face.

"If I can get us a shot on the devil… Dean, we have to take it." the blonde said, turning to look at Dean.

"No!" Ellen exclaimed, looking up at Dean. "That's not…"

"Mom. This might literally be your last chance to treat me like an adult. Might wanna take it?" Jo said, smiling.

Ellen replied by sobbing and taking her hand, squeezing it.

"You heard her. Get to work." She snapped at the boys.

The two women watched as Dean and Sam gathered the materials and assembled the bombs, filling them with nails and rock salt for shrapnel. They looked out to see that the sun was beginning to set. Sam bent down next to Jo and took her head, his eyes filled with sadness and regret. Dean strung the wire to the button and handed it to Jo.

"Okay, this is it. I'll see you on the other side. Probably sooner than later." He said, trying not to become emotional.

"Make it later." She choked out.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"Stop being such an idiot with Elena. You love her. I can see it. Even though I'm jealous that she managed to bag you. You're… a winner, Dean Winchester." Jo said with a grin, tears sliding down her cheeks.

Ellen came up and sat next to Jo, who turned to look at her. The older Harvelle woman smiled and Jo shook her head.

"Mom, no." Jo whispered.

"Somebody's gotta let them in. Like you said, you're not moving. You got me, Jo. And you're right, this is important." Ellen said, trying to stay strong.

Jo nodded slowly as Sam and Dean stood up.

"But I will not leave you here alone." Ellen said.

"Dean…" Sam began.

"Get going now, boys." Ellen said, turning to look at them.

"Ellen…" Dean began.

"I said go." She snapped, narrowing her eyes at them.

Sam looked at Dean hesitantly before they turned to walk away.

"And Dean?" Ellen said.

Dean turned to look back at her.

"Kick it in the ass. Don't miss." She instructed him.

Dean nodded and they headed for their exit. Ellen stood to unchain the doors, sweeping away the salt line and opening the propane tanks before sitting next to Jo and hugging her.

"I will always love you, baby." She said as they heard distant growling.

* * *

Sam and Dean ran across a few roofs before jumping onto the ground. When they saw a figure running towards them, they both lifted their guns to point at the person.

"It's me." they sighed with relief when they heard Elena's voice.

She stopped in front of them and looked confused.

"Where were you?" Sam asked.

"I met Lucifer. He's a charmer. Where are Jo and Ellen?" she asked, looking around.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look and she stared at them.

"Guys?" she said, fearing the answer.

"Hellhounds attacked us. One of 'em got Jo. She… uh, she wasn't gonna survive. They're luring the hounds into the hardware store." Dean said, pointing backwards.

"And then?" Elena said.

"The place is rigged with bombs. They're gonna blow it up." Sam sighed.

Elena stared between them.

"You've got to be kidding me." she said.

"It's the best chance we got to get rid of those things." Dean said.

"No, not anymore. I'm the best chance we got." Elena said, shaking her head.

She refused to let Ellen and Jo die. Not when there was a chance to save them.

"What are you gonna do?" Dean demanded as she turned to run to the store.

"Go find the damn devil! And Cas!" she yelled back.

Dean launched forward and caught her arm.

"This is stupid. You'll get yourself killed." He growled, looking deep into her eyes.

"I didn't ask for your permission, Dean. I'm not gonna let Ellen and Jo die when I have a chance to stop it. Besides, I have the best protection ever. I have beings who want me to see the apocalypse through to the end. They're not gonna let me die. Trust me." Elena said convincingly.

"Because I have every reason to do that." Dean scoffed.

Elena shoved him off, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I'm not giving you a choice. You try to stop me and I'll kick your stubborn ass into next week. Now go." she snapped, controlling the overwhelming urge to hit Dean.

They watched as she turned to run off.

"Dean, she's right. We have to go. We can stop this." Sam said.

"What if she dies?" Dean said, turning to look at him.

"She won't." Sam said confidently.

* * *

"Honey?" Ellen looked down at Jo, who was completely still.

Her eyes were glassy.

"Jo…" she sobbed, pulling her head against her chest.

"It's okay, it's okay." She cried, kissing her on the head.

"That's my good girl."

Suddenly she heard footsteps and she looked around, alarmed. Elena ran around the corner.

"You shouldn't be in here." She hissed, watching as the young woman ran up to them.

"No, this is exactly where I should be." Elena said, kneeling in front of them.

Her eyes flickered over Jo and a flash of pain went through them.

"She's dead." Ellen cried softly, looking down at her lifeless daughter.

Elena looked up at her with shining eyes.

"Not for long." She said, pushing her sleeves up.

"You can't, Elena. You can't heal anyone but those boys! They need you! Get your ass out of here!" Ellen said, trying to shove her away.

"Stop distracting me!" Elena snapped back, closing her eyes as she concentrated.

Her hands went to the bandage on Jo's side. Ellen watched with terrified eyes as the growling grew nearer.

"Elena…" she began to argue again.

"Shut up!" the young woman shouted, shaking her hands out.

"Work dammit!" she screamed frustratingly.

"Elena get the hell out of here!" Ellen yelled.

Suddenly a blinding white light filled their vision as the doors slammed open. It took Ellen a moment to realize that the light was coming from Elena's hands and flowing into Jo's body. She looked at the girl's face and saw that her eyes were wide-open and bright blue. Her hair blew back out of her face and she looked ethereal. Growling filled the air at the same time as the white light faded and Jo let out a heavy gasp.

"Jo!" Ellen cried.

"Mom?"

"Time to go." Elena said, trying to yank them up without dwelling on what she'd just done.

They turned in time for warm breath from one of the hellhounds to wash over their faces.

"Damn." Elena murmured, frozen in place.

"What do we do?" Ellen said, panicked.

"I don't know. I can't… I can't get us out of here." Elena said, panicking as well as she looked upon the ugly, snarling monsters.

The creatures were terrifying. They all stood there perfectly still as the hellhounds filled the hardware store around them. Elena looked up at the ceiling, sending all of her desperation to her voice.

"I need help." She whimpered.

Nothing happened. Elena bit her lip and sighed, pulling them all up to a standing position as the hellhounds surrounded them.

"Ellen… when I say three, press the button, okay?" she said in a hesitant voice.

"Elena…" Ellen began.

"They'll keep hunting Sam and Dean if we don't." she said, looking at the older woman with wide eyes.

"Do it, Mom. We have to give them their best chance." Jo said.

Ellen looked at the two younger girls before nodding. They squeezed each other's hands tightly.

"One…" Elena whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and picturing Dean.

She loved him. She loved him and she would never get a chance to say it.

"Two…"

She pictured her friends and family from Mystic Falls next. All of those people that she still loved no matter what. Her brother, who would probably never know what happened to her, that she died trying to save the world.

"Three." She finished.

Ellen pressed her thumb down on the button and they felt a rush of heat as they squeezed their eyes shut tightly. Elena suddenly felt a hand grasp her shoulder and her eyes flew open. They all looked around to see that they were standing on the street.

"What the…" Ellen said.

They all turned to see the hardware store behind them, a hole blown through the roof and the building stripped down to its bones as it burned.

"That would be me." a voice said from behind them.

They turned to see whom the voice belonged to and were met with a smirking face with amused eyes. Elena narrowed her eyes at him, her mouth forming a thin line.

"Oh don't glare at me like that. You called me." Gabriel shrugged, walking forward.

* * *

Sam and Dean remained crouched down as they snuck through the bushes surrounding the field. They looked through them to see dozens of men standing in the field staring at something that was out of sight to them.

"Guess we know what happened to some of the townspeople." Dean said.

"Okay." Sam sighed.

"Okay." Dean repeated.

"Last words?" the younger brother asked.

They looked at each other for a moment.

"I think I'm good." Dean said.

"Yeah. Me too." Sam nodded.

"Here goes nothing." Dean said as they moved forward out of the bushes.

"Hey!" Sam shouted, approaching the man who was filling a hole with a shovel.

He was holding a shotgun at the ready. Lucifer turned, dropping the shovel and wiping his hands off on his jeans.

"You wanted to see me?" Sam demanded.

"Oh, Sam, you don't need that gun here. You know I'd never hurt you. Not really." Lucifer said with a smirk.

"Yeah? Well, I'd hurt you." Lucifer turned to see Dean pointing the Colt at him, point-blank to the forehead.

"So suck it." he said before firing.

Lucifer collapsed and none of the men surrounding them did a thing. Dean and Sam watched the corpse for a minute before he inhaled and shifted positions.

"Ow!" Lucifer complained, standing up.

Sam stared at him, horrified, as he turned to Dean.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, referring to the gun.

He didn't wait for an answer, punching Dean so hard that he flew into a tree. Sam watched as he fell to the ground before turning back to Lucifer.

"Now, where were we?" the devil asked.

* * *

Castiel was still stuck in the fire ring. Meg was watching him with a bored expression as the pipe on the wall was spinning with the force that he was using to dislodge it.

"You seem pleased." He said, trying to distract her.

"We're gonna win. Can you feel it? You cloud-hopping pansies lost the whole damn universe. Lucifer's gonna take over heaven. We're going to heaven, Clarence." Meg said triumphantly.

"Strange, because I heard a different theory from a demon named Crowley." He said, looking straight at her.

"You don't know Crowley." Meg scoffed skeptically.

"He believes Lucifer is just using demons to achieve an end, and that, once he does, he'll destroy you all." He informed her.

"You're wrong. Lucifer is the father of our race. Our creator. Your God may be a deadbeat. Mine… mine walks the earth." Meg said, walking forward with spread arms.

Castiel finally got the pipe free of the wall and it flew forward, slamming into Meg and throwing her through the fire into his arms. He pressed his palm to her forehead, concentrating. But nothing happened. The demon laughed tauntingly.

"You can't gank demons, can you? You're cut off from the home office and you ain't got the juice. So what can you do, you impotent sap?" she asked, grinning.

"I can do this."

Cas leaned closer as if to kiss her before throwing her down into the fire face down. She screamed as he walked across her back and out of the room.

* * *

"Take them back to Bobby's." Elena said to Gabriel as she turned to run off.

"Wait, we can still help!" Jo said.

Elena stopped and turned to look at her.

"You've already died, Jo. We can't have that happening again. I just need to go find Sam and Dean and Cas and get us all out of here." She said pleadingly.

"And what makes you think I'm gonna do what you tell me?" Gabriel asked.

"Because you wouldn't have saved my life just now and all of the thousands of times that you've saved it before if you didn't care at least a little bit. So please, Gabriel, do this for me." she said pleadingly.

He stared at her for a moment before smirking.

"Only because you asked nicely." He said, turning around to touch Jo and Ellen's forehead.

Elena sighed with relief when she heard the fluttering of wings and turned, running off in the direction that her instincts told her to. Suddenly someone appeared in front of her and grabbed her as she ran.

"Cas, you got away." She breathed with relief.

"I know where they are." He said before taking her hand in his and disappearing with her.

* * *

"Don't feel too bad, Sam. There's only five things in all of creation that that gun can't kill, and I just happen to be one of them. But if you give me a minute, I'm almost done." Lucifer said, picking up the shovel and continuing to move the dirt.

Sam ran over to Dean and checked his pulse. When he turned, he saw Lucifer leaning onto the shovel.

"You know, I don't suppose you'd just say yes here and now?" he asked, sounding hopeful.

Sam stood up, glaring at him.

"End this whole tiresome discussion? That's crazy, right?" he shrugged.

"It's never gonna happen!" Sam snapped.

Lucifer smirked before going back to filling his hole.

"Oh, I don't know, Sam. I think it will. I think it'll happen soon. Within six months. And I think it'll happen in Detroit." He informed him as he worked.

"You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I'm gonna kill you myself, you understand me? I'm going to rip your heart out!" Sam growled.

"That's good, Sam. You keep fanning that fire in your belly. All that pent-up rage. I'm gonna need it." he nodded, sounding unconcerned.

Sam calmed down visibly and looked around at the men who were all still in some kind of trance.

"What did you do? What did you do to this town?" he demanded.

"Oh, I was very generous with this town. One demon for every able-bodied man." Lucifer said.

"And the rest of them?" Sam asked, turning to him.

Lucifer paused and nodded down at the hole.

"In there. I know, it's awful, but these horsemen are so demanding. So it was women and children first. I know what you must think of me, Sam. But I have to do this. I have to. You of all people should understand." He said, looking at the younger Winchester.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demanded.

Lucifer dropped the shovel and faced him.

"I was a son. A brother, like you, a younger brother, and I had an older brother who I loved. Idolized, in fact. And one day I went to him and I begged him to stand with me, and Michael… Michael turned on me. Called me a freak. A monster. And then he beat me down. All because I was different. Because I had a mind of my own. Tell me something, Sam. Any of this sound familiar?"

Sam glared at him, unwilling to play his game.

"Anyway. You'll have to excuse me. Midnight is calling and I have a ritual to finish. Don't go anywhere. Not that you could if you would." Lucifer said, turning back to his hole.

Sam walked to Dean and knelt beside his unconscious form as Lucifer began chanting in Latin. Then he turned to his demons.

"Now repeat after me. We offer up our lives, blood, souls…" he said.

Dean stirred, his eyes fluttering.

"We offer up our lives, blood, souls…" the demons repeated.

"… to complete this tribute." Lucifer said.

"… to complete this tribute." They repeated as Sam helped Dean stand up.

One by one the demons all flashed gold and fell over, dead. Sam and Dean stared with shock as Lucifer looked over at them.

"What? They're just demons." He shrugged.

The ground began to rumble as Lucifer stood over the mass grave. Sam stared at Lucifer as Dean glanced between them. Suddenly a hand clamped on each of their shoulders. They turned to see Castiel and Elena standing there. Cas held a finger to his lips before holding up his hand where Elena was clasping it. She reached out and took Sam's hand, who took put his hand on Dean's shoulder. Lucifer looked back moments later to see that they were gone. He didn't react, instead turning to walk forward as the rumbling got more intense.

"Oh, hello, Death." He said with a smirk.

* * *

Dean and Sam looked around as they appeared next to the Impala at Bobby's house, strangely enough. It still amazed them that Cas could transport an entire car.

"Ellen and Jo?" Dean asked, looking at Elena.

"They're here." Elena explained.

"How is Jo?" Sam asked.

The door suddenly slammed open and Ellen came running out along with a completely healthy looking Jo answering their question.

"Thank God you boys are okay." Ellen said, embracing both Sam and Dean.

They were looking at Jo with shocked looks so they didn't see the third person that walked out of the house. Elena stared up at him, surprised that Gabriel was still there.

"They insisted on a drink, saying I saved your lives." He shrugged with a smirk as he walked down the steps to approach the group.

Dean and Sam turned at his voice to glare at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean demanded, his voice tight with anger.

A hand flew out and smacked him over the head.

"You be nice, Dean Winchester! He saved our lives! We were cornered by those hounds, all three of us. We were fixing to blow ourselves up until he showed up and whisked us on out of there." Ellen berated Dean, making him look a little bit sheepish.

He settled for simply glowering at Gabriel instead of demanding that he leave.

"Did you heal Jo?" Sam asked, staring at Gabriel warily.

"No." Ellen answered, her eyes trained on Elena.

Elena looked down at her shoes, not knowing what to do or say in this situation. She was shocked when Ellen suddenly yanked her into a hug.

"I am never gonna stop being grateful to you, you hear?" she murmured.

Elena slowly wrapped her hands around the other woman's torso.

"I was just… you know…" she shrugged.

"You gave me my daughter back." Ellen said, pulling away and looking at Elena with tears shining in her eyes. "Thank you."

Elena flushed and nodded.

"You're welcome." She replied.

Jo nodded at her when their eyes met and Elena smiled at her.

"That was you." she heard Cas breath and she turned to look at them, avoiding the shocked gazes of the Winchester brothers.

"What? Giving off that big burst of angelic energy? Of course it was." Gabriel said, smirking at Elena.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"We all felt it, cupcake. You don't exude that kind of power without attracting some attention."

"Gabriel, that was more power than the average guardian should be giving off." Cas said, turning his attention on his brother.

"Cheer up, Cas. This is good news. She's growing up on us." Gabriel said, pretending to wipe a fake tear from his eye.

"We're going to have to talk about this." Cas said seriously.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"Would you all get in here? I wanna make sure you're alive too!" Bobby's voice floated out of the front door.

They all smiled, unable to do anything else as they tromped up the stairs. Bobby immediately yanked Dean and Sam down to his level, clutching at them tightly for a moment before letting go. Then he rolled up to Elena and shook his head at her, taking her hand.

"You are never gonna stop saving our asses, are you?" he said, his voice full of emotion.

"I wouldn't count on it." Elena said with a grin.

He shook his head again and yanked her down to hug her tight as he could.

"I count these boys as my sons. Have for a long time now. But when I look at you, I feel the same as when I look at them. You may not like it, but you're like a daughter to me, Elena Gilbert." He said.

She bit back tears that threatened to overtake her at his words.

"Thank you, Bobby." She said, losing her grip on her emotions as a few tears slipped out of her eyes.

She stood back up and smiled down at him before turning. Dean was nowhere to be seen and she instantly looked around for him.

"He's in the kitchen getting us all beer." Ellen informed her. "Why don't you go help him?"

Elena nodded and turned to walk into the kitchen. She shoved her hands in her back pocket as she hovered in the middle of it. Dean turned around with his hands full of beer. He saw her and he nodded, putting all of the beer on the counter. He walked towards her slowly.

"You, uh… you saved Jo." He said, standing about a foot away from her.

"Yeah… I guess." She shrugged.

His eyes stared deep into hers as she looked up at him, emotion filling them.

"You save us all the time."

"I'm not sorry for what I did to keep you safe, Dean. I'm sorry that it hurt you when you found out. I'm sorry that I had to lie to you to keep you safe." Elena said, stepping forward.

"I'm not even mad about that. I don't know that I ever was." he sighed. "I fucked up. I was so mad that you were willing to sacrifice yourself for me… I saw red."

"I know." She nodded.

He ran his fingers through his short hair.

"I'm sorry." He said softly.

Elena smiled slightly.

"I know." She nodded.

He looked up at her.

"I can't let them take you from me." Dean said, shaking his head.

Elena stepped right up to him and put her hands on his cheeks, not even caring about the distance they'd put between themselves in the last few days.

"Shh." She murmured, stroking his cheek softly. "Everyone got out alive tonight. Let's celebrate that at least for a few hours. We'll worry about everything else later."

He nodded as his arms wrapped around her and squeezed her to him. Elena smiled and held him close as well.

"I'm still not forgiving that angelic bastard." He said stubbornly.

She laughed and pulled away, grinning up at him.

"No one said you had to and neither am I." Elena assured him.

Dean stared down at her for a moment, putting his hand on her cheek.

"I don't know what I'd do if I lost you." he whispered.

She simply smiled at him and leaned up on her toes, kissing him softly.

"We'll figure something out." she murmured against his lips.

He sighed and pulled her even closer, turning them so that he could pick her up and put her on the counter. Their kisses turned feverish as her legs wrapped around his hips.

"Did I hear my name? Oh!"

They both groaned as Gabriel's voice interrupted them.

"Sorry about that. I heard angelic bastard and came a-running." He said with a wink, leaning on the doorway as they glared at him.

"Have they kissed and made up yet?" Jo asked, walking in behind Gabriel with a grin.

"Hey! Private moment!" Dean protested as Ellen and Sam followed her.

"Not in my kitchen, it isn't." Bobby grumbled, rolling in with Cas closely following him.

"I hate you all." Dean grumbled, turning to face the group.

Elena remained on the counter, pulling him back to lean against her with her chin his shoulder and her arms lazily draped around his shoulders and neck.

"What now?" Sam asked, passing out beers as they stood in there.

"We keep on survivin', that's what." Bobby said.

"Sounds like a plan to me." Ellen said as they all opened their bottles.

"Surviving." Sam shrugged, holding his beer up.

They all did the same, nodding as they took drinks of it, basking in the fact that everyone made it out alive that night.

* * *

**Author's Note: I hope that you liked that chapter's end a little bit more than the last chapter. Review please!**

**Next: Elena, Dean, and Sam go back to Mystic Falls**


	12. Author's Note Again - Sorry!

**This isn't a chapter and for that I apologize.**

I will be putting this story and Thunderstruck on a very temporary hiatus. I am having a very hard time writing anything in the Supernatural universe right now. I'm simply posting the old versions of my chapters without any changes and I don't like doing that. Thunderstruck is proving more difficult to write than I thought it would be. I want to do the best I can for my readers and right now I'm not at my best. I am so sorry that I've been doing badly in writing right now. You may not think so but I have definitely noticed the difference. I've just had a few problems with my depression lately and it's affecting my writing. I'm going to try to take a breath and do something else for a while. I hope that you guys can bear with me. I don't want to stop writing because it seems when I do that, it only makes things worse. I need to do what is best for me above all else and right now, that is taking a break from these stories.

I've had a request by a dear friend who reads these crossover stories when she found out that I've been watching Sons of Anarchy. I'm going to try writing a TVD/SoA crossover fic. I do not want you to feel obligated to read it but I did want to let you know about it. I would love for you guys to read it but I don't expect anything. Thank you so much for your support in advance and I hope that I can come back to these stories soon. If you would like a message informing you of when I post the new crossover fic, let me know. I will send you a PM with the details.

Again, I am so sorry for this. I wish that I had better news. Mental health is not something that is predictable and it's also something that I take very seriously. Please be patient with me and I promise that I will try my best to return to where I was before. I don't want to give up these stories again because I'm having a bad time. I think that this break will be best for us all.


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